


Management

by VIII (Valkyrien)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: A Broken Home Is No Better Than A Stifling One, An Anger Management AU That Is Also An Anger And Management AU, F/M, Gen, Modern AU, This Is A Commissioned Work, UK Setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-06-08 09:44:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6849361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/VIII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rickon doesn't think he needs an intervention - Shireen staged her own. Neither is taking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take What You Can

**Author's Note:**

> So my friend ships it and she's in a foul mood and we're listening to music to reflect that, and she says 'Give me something angry'. So I have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  [Picset](http://valkyrien.tumblr.com/post/145174675029/management)

 

 

 

   Rickon shouldn't even be here, he thinks viciously as his boot taps a drumbeat on the plain linoleum floor and his fingers pick at a seam on his cargos and he stares blankly at the neatly gathered pure white knees of the girl who's talking. Gods, even her ankles are crossed and tucked under her seat to one side.

 

 

   Soft voice, careful body language, one big apology, long hair hanging over her shoulders can't cover the nasty scar on the side of her face, her neck, almost to the top of her stupid eggshell silk blouse, and Rickon only knows what it is because Sansa, gods love her and keep her, goes on and on about shit like that, waves around Vogue at every bastard opportunity because _'This is what I mean, just like this one, it's so chic!'_ and Rickon loves her and he'd kill for her but fuck if it isn't the most annoying thing in the world.

 

 

   He shouldn't be here, he thinks, curling his hand into a fist idly as the scarred girl carries on, her words meaningless white noise in the background of his mind as he looks at his knuckles and how well they've healed up, the wound from where he took out one of Bolton's teeth all but invisible now, remembers how neat the stitches were, and he takes a moment to appreciate that they're gone now because fuck him if that wasn't a hassle.

 

 

   “... control, and it's just so frustrating,” he hears, before he tunes out again, because he flat refuses to actually participate in this farce.

 

 

   He may acknowledge that he got off lightly due to his age and the circumstances and his father's influence and very expensive lawyer's fancy footwork with some community service and an order to attend these pointless 'anger management' courses until the guy running them with the new-agey Zen moniker judges him fit to be among decent people again on a short leash, but Rickon will to his dying breath believe that Bolton fucking deserved to be beaten until he stopped moving for what he said about Sansa and Rickon's just glad he happened to overhear the little toe-rag mouthing off about it and about how Joffrey Lannister _must have broken her in just right so it won't even be hard to make her do whatever I want, she's such a sad case -_

 

 

   “...don't know how to suppress the urge,” the blue-eyed girl with the scars is mumbling as if she's ashamed, and Rickon flicks his eyes to her and the way she's twisting her hands into her sensible black skirt so it inches up slightly from her knees and shows a bit of thigh, and Rickon does not as a rule ogle girls but she's cute in a damaged goods kind of way, like he knows he is himself in the right light, and he recalls the way she'd looked at him when he came in and sat down an hour ago - spread legs and sprawling because he doesn't care about any of this, it doesn't apply to him - like she was scandalised, and he thinks she could probably be a lot of fun, wonders what kind of catholic all-girls school she went to that repressed her so hard she needs to come to this place and vent about her daily struggles with feeling everyday emotions.

 

 

   “Just don't bother,” he tells her frankly, sitting up a bit, and she frowns in confusion and almost too politely asks,

 

 

   “Excuse me?”

 

 

   “Just don't bother,” he repeats slowly, shaping the words exaggeratedly so he can lick his lip and see if she colours, and she doesn't but her eyes flash and he thinks that's a victory at least,

 

 

   “Don't bother _suppressing_ anything - why are you even fucking here? You look like the most interesting thing to ever happen to you was whatever gave you that scar, what could you possibly have going on that you need to come _here_ to vent about? This is a parking spot for people like me who get sent here until we're sorry we ever reacted to anything in our entire fucking lives, what are you doing here talking about how you're not, what -  pious and repressed enough yet to earn the wimple?”

 

 

   “Rickon!” the guy who's supposedly in charge of this joke snaps at him but it's ineffectual because Rickon doesn't give a single shit, instead he's managed to work himself up over how unbelievably fucking pointless this is, what a godsdamned waste of time that he has to sit here and pretend to be very sorry for beating Ramsay Bolton to a pulp for talking about Rickon's abused sister like that made her all the riper for the taking, across from the little nun-in-training with the scars whose greatest frustration is apparently that she can't accept the failures of others with nearly enough grace to fit into her fucking halo every night before evensong.

 

 

   “Fuck this, I'm leaving,” Rickon spits, suddenly too angry to stay here, needing to run before he goes past the point of pain and can't hold back even a little anymore, and he snags his helmet from the floor and gets to his feet to stalk past _Elder fucking Brother_ and out of this village-hall-modern-extension nightmare, refusing to look back.

 

 

   He's parked Jon's bike on the neat beige gravel drive in front of the building - Jon's not home, he's off somewhere climbing a mountain with his red-headed girlfriend who was probably a Stark in another life and would be again if Jon would get his house in order and change his name right and then just marry the girl the way he so clearly wants to, the bloody coward - and Rickon strides over to it purposely and is about to swing his leg over when someone shouts,

 

 

   “ _Hey!_ We are _not_ done,” and a strong hand grasps his arm and pulls him around.

 

 

   She is not very large at all, in fact he towers over her, worse this close, so he wasn't expecting her to have such a firm grip, just like he wasn't expecting her to look so angry, or to have followed him out here at all, but she has.

 

 

   “How dare you? How _dare_ you just assume you know everything about me at a glance - how dare you _humiliate_ me like that in front of everyone?” she demands, an echo of tears in her tone, and his temper really snaps.

 

 

   “Oh, grow up, _princess_ ,” he jeers nastily,

 

 

   “How dare I? What is this Elizabethan drama _bullshit_ , the fuck do you mean how _dare_ I?”

 

 

   She says nothing but her lips thin as if she's holding something back and her hands clench tight and he laughs at her because it's ridiculous, because it's all so fucking stupid and so is she.

 

 

   “How dare I call attention to how fucked up it is that I'm only here because I beat up someone to protect my sister and apparently that's not socially acceptable in this day and age, so I have to sit here on sunny days and listen to people like you offload guilt about accidentally short-changing a cashier and how there are only so many hours in the day to volunteer at the soup kitchen? Fuck off,” he snarls, and she doesn't back down an inch.

 

 

   “I don't care why you're here, you spoiled little nonsense, but this group does not exist for your sake and you have no right to come here for _any_ reason and disparage those of us who feel an actual need to be here, particularly when you don't know the first thing about any of us or why we might feel that need,” she snaps back, and there's some bite to her now that pushes him over the edge, so he leans in and looms and lets his fangs show so she'll leave him the hell alone, and when she just keeps glaring at him with righteous anger he forces a wolfish smile to his face instead.

 

 

   “I'd love to hear all about whatever needs you feel and all those pesky urges you just can't suppress, princess, but this is not the place and you've clearly got a convent to go back to, so why don't you give me your number and go back inside and finish contemplating God's infinite grace or whatever the fuck it is you need to lean on to feel like part of the world, and I'll be on my way,” he sneers, condescending and filthy and dragging his eyes over her face to make her back off and back up and leave, because that always works and he is over this, he's done.

 

 

   A strange kind of serenity comes over her face and then it vanishes, replaced by nothing at all, and she looks up at him with dark blue eyes and her sweet-pink lips part and she speaks with absolutely no inflection,

 

 

   “Do you really want to know which of my urges I find the hardest to control?”

 

 

   “Go on then,” he prompts, because she is pale and delicate and deliciously proper and such a contrast to him and what he should probably be into that it's funny, and he was not expecting whatever the hell this is but he won't deny he's as curious to hear her answer as he is to know what those scars feel like, and then maybe later, when she's loose-limbed and less of a stranger, where they came from, because he's having trouble imagining what kind of injury could leave marks like that, and fuck him, he's sixteen and part of him is never not thinking about when or whether he'll ever find anyone interesting enough who's genuinely interested in _him_ and doesn't see him as just the eternal baby brother of a friend of a friend because maybe, fuck him further, Rickon Stark is a romantic at heart and when his family say he's misunderstood they don't really know the half of it but he hopes someday someone will, maybe even know the whole and like it.

 

 

   “The urge to bash patronising little shits like you,” she hisses, so viciously sincere that it takes him aback, and so maybe he should have seen the fist she slams into his face coming but he just doesn't and by the time he knows she's dragged him down with a hand snarled into his hair and her knee is driving into his ribcage he could probably have seen _that_ coming, but he's so shocked to be knocked breathless and then pushed away by this tiny girl who fights like a seasoned brawler and looks about as substantial as a rose petal that he just stares at her wide-eyed, staggered, panting and embarrassingly aroused and all he can think to say is,

 

 

   “Who _are_ you?”

 

 

   “That's none of your concern,” she spits, and he notices that her hair shines ink-black in the sun and that birds are singing in the hedge and that there is a little fleck of blood on her eggshell silk blouse that he knows by the stinging of his face is from where the raised filigree of the slim silver ring on the hand she struck him with caught his cheekbone, and he is absolutely floored.

 

 

   “I - I'm sorry,” he manages, because he feels like he's five years old again somehow but at the same time he can't recall ever feeling this repentant about anything at that age, which makes it ludicrous,

 

 

   “I just got angry - I don't think I should be here - I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

 

 

   “I don't _care_ why you're here,” she reiterates,

 

 

   “But if you can't respect that other people might feel differently about this, then you need to get on your bike and get lost, because I for one do not have time to deal with this crap from kids who probably could have landed in far hotter water for their sins than having to attend a silly little village anger management group.”

 

 

   Not a word of what she's saying is a lie, and Rickon laps it up because honestly it's the first frankness he's had from anyone in a very long time, everyone from his siblings to his parents seem to think he's a bomb waiting to go off and they may not be wrong but they are driving him mad with their cautious suspense.

 

 

   “Now get the fuck out of my sight, you're done for today,” the little girl snaps,

 

 

   “And stop gawking - these scars may be ugly but they look worse when I try and cover them up. Same goes for everything else in life, take that away from today, _Rickon_.”

 

 

   She spins on her modest little heel, crunches gravel as she walks back into the village hall like the fact that she just handed him his own arse was nothing in the grand scheme of things, and he realises that he is just stood there grinning like a loon while his face slowly begins to ache and his ribs bloom bruises he's starting to really feel, and he realises further that she took note of his name, even if she used it derisively and dismissively, and he doesn't know hers, couldn't be fucked to pay enough attention at the start of today's little meeting.

 

 

   He'll do better next time, he promises himself, gets on Jon's bike, and leaves, and when he gets home his mother makes a fuss because she's sure he must have taken a tumble somehow on the damn thing he's not actually old enough to legally ride and she won't be convinced otherwise even when he shows her the pristine bike and the equally pristine helmet, which does nothing but set her off on a lecture about how he must not have been wearing the helmet then which is unacceptable, and so he's not even a little bit aroused anymore when he finally shakes her off and makes it to the bathroom to shower, but it's not hard to recapture when he closes his eyes and presses his fingers into the bruise on his torso from that pure white knee and lets the water run over his scraped and swollen cheek, and he laughs once when he comes and again when he sees his own face in the mirror when he's drying off.

 

 

   Anger management isn't a light sentence at all, it is a fucking gift, and Rickon is even less sorry for beating Bolton's teeth into his throat now because it means he gets to spend an hour a week in the company of the girl with the grey scars, and that is something he feels like he's been waiting for even longer than he knew she existed.

 

 

   -


	2. More Than I Can Give

 

 

 

   She gets home, takes off her blouse, and puts it on a delicate wash right away and with luck that'll be that, and she leaves her shoes by the door and her skirt in the sectioned hamper with the other black things she'll get round to, maybe tomorrow, and she boils the kettle and puts a teabag in a fresh mug and stares into the steam when it rises until she's ready to pour the water out, and she gets the milk out and doses her tea without looking and then puts the milk back in its place and closes the fridge door gently.

 

 

   Then Shireen Baratheon stands in the middle of her kitchen in her underwear and throws her head back and screams.

 

 

   It's like draining a wound, an outpouring of filth she needs ridding of, and she stops just short of pain, short of tears, and then she curls her hands around her cup of tea even though it is much too hot to hold comfortably, and sips it even though it is much too hot not to burn a little too much for comfort, and when it's all gone she leaves the mug on the table and goes to find her phone.

 

 

   Davos answers on the fourth ring, caller ID lets him say her name with concern and warmth right off the bat, and,

 

 

   “Still nothing, I'm afraid.”

 

 

   “Thank you, Davos. I know you would have called, I just... I have to check,” she says in apology, even though he knows so she doesn't really have to.

 

 

   “It's alright,” he reassures her,

 

 

   “It'll all be right in the end. Therapy okay today?”

 

 

   “... I punched someone,” she confesses, defeat heavy in her lungs,

 

 

   “And kneed him amidships.”

 

 

   “But he walked away fine? Didn't threaten any lawsuits? Didn't kick up a fuss?” Davos asks her, the lack of judgment soothing her nerves, and she hums.

 

 

   “No. He drove away. In one piece. Illegally. On a motorcycle,” she divulges, and Davos makes an encouraging sound at her.

 

 

   “See, you're makin' progress my girl!” he praises her, lifts her,

 

 

   “Not long ago he'd have left the place on a stretcher - this group's good for you, Shireen. I know you may not feel it, but you've come on leaps and bounds. I'm proud of you.”

 

 

   “Thank you, Davos,” she says in a small voice, feeling her tears encroach,

 

 

   “I have to go. Call me if - ?”

 

 

   “Aye, you know I'll call you. You take care now, my girl, you hear?”

 

 

   “I'll try,” is all she can promise, but he utters a deep, rich sound of wordless reassurance that is as good as a declaration of faith, and then says his goodbyes.

 

 

   She lays the phone aside listlessly, feeling drained and empty now, and she spends the rest of her evening standing under the warm spray of her shower and staring blankly into space until she feels dizzy and falls into bed half-damp and still partially wrapped in her towel. Her hand doesn't start to hurt until morning, and she doesn't even feel the bruise on her leg, but she wears a longer skirt so no one else will see, and keeps her hand tucked into her sleeve all day.

 

 

   Brienne keeps her peace until long after everyone else has left the office, when she finally knocks on the door and awaits Shireen's soft ' _enter_ ' before she does, and Shireen sighs and pushes her hair back, leaves her fingers in it because she is too exhausted not to, her eyes sore and dry, and Brienne stands at parade rest in front of the desk until Shireen finally says,

 

 

   “You know you don't have to stay on until I leave.”

 

 

   “I know that, Miss Baratheon, I just thought - ” Brienne pauses and Shireen glances up at her with grainy lashes obscuring things so that Brienne is just a brightly-haloed blur of gold, and it makes her recall certain comments and her teeth grind together without her consent.

 

 

   “Please speak freely, Brienne,” she encourages, unclenching her jaw and trying to look less angry and exhausted, because she knows that if anyone means her well it is this woman, and that Brienne holds back only because she feels that what she wants to say might be skirting the edge of propriety, pushing past the professionalism Shireen enforces so rigidly here.

 

 

   “Well, Miss Baratheon - it's almost eleven. You got in at eight. It's Saturday,” Brienne lists off, things Shireen knows, things she wishes weren't true, and she nods, slowly, her hand caught in her hair still and likely making a mess of it now, and when she blinks that is also much too slow, and then Brienne says hesitantly,

 

 

   “Your hand was fine yesterday...”

 

 

   It's a hint, it's an opening, an invitation to vent and offload or just tell Brienne to bugger off, but Shireen will do none of those things because she knows what her duty is within these walls, she knows what she can and cannot do, what is and is not right.

 

 

   “It's fine now,” she insists, slapping on a smile over half-closed dazed eyes that slips off just as soon as she tilts her head to deliver it, since Brienne is so very tall,

 

 

   “I'm alright, really, Brienne. You needn't worry.”

 

 

   “Miss Baratheon - ” Brienne begins, sounding perturbed, and suddenly it is too much, and Shireen slides her hand from the depths of her hair where it was propping her up and covers her eyes instead, bowing her head and uttering a sharp, soaked,

 

 

   “Please!”

 

 

   Brienne says nothing, and so Shireen takes a deep breath, and another, and then she puts her hand on her desk in front of her in a measured, controlled gesture, and without looking at Brienne says very quietly,

 

 

   “Please, Brienne - when it's just the two of us, Shireen will do. Please.”

 

 

   “Miss Shireen,” Brienne replies, firmly, but not because Shireen is showing weakness, because it is Brienne's way to care like this, and Shireen trusts that about her, that she is not seeking to take advantage,

 

 

   “Mr. Seaworth was very clear when he hired me that you were not to work yourself to death if it could be avoided. Let me take you home.”

 

 

   “Brienne, I have work to do still - ”

 

 

   “I don't mean to overstep, Miss Shireen, but you look like you're about to keel over, and we can't do without you if that happens. Now please, let me take you home,” Brienne offers again, and Shireen knows that she's no match for the immoveable object that is Brienne's own sense of duty, certainly not in this condition, wrung out and haggard, and so she just nods, limp and silent, and allows Brienne to stride behind her desk and help her out of her chair, carry her bag for her silently while Shireen locks up and arms the alarm system, and then open and close the door for her when they reach the car.

 

 

   There is a moment while Shireen is staring blankly at the curve of the dashboard, nestled into the embrace of the leather upholstery, where she feels like a child again, the sounds and smells of being chauffeured taking her back to a time before the anger, where instead she was all uncertainty and apology, insecure. She is all those things, still. She is just more furious than anything else, all the time. It has become a crutch, but she can't afford to let go. She just needs to learn to manage it better.

 

 

   They make it some way down the main road before Shireen notices that she is compulsively rubbing her bruised hand, first this way, then that, and she makes a deliberate effort to stop because noticing it reminds her of the failure, of how she allowed herself to be weak even though the provocation to do so was nothing, was so little compared to what she deals with daily, and she is fiercely ashamed that she did not hold back when she knows that she should be able to by now, that she has _proved_ herself able.

 

 

   “I won't ask, Miss Shireen,” Brienne says, soft and unobtrusive,

 

 

   “I know you can handle yourself. But if there's anything troubling you, or anyone bothering you... I hope you know you can trust me.”

 

 

   “I do trust you, Brienne,” Shireen says wearily, closing her eyes as yellow streetlights strobe across her windshield and burn red inside her aching lids,

 

 

   “There was an... incident, yesterday. At my therapy group. I allowed it to escalate, and then I handled it poorly. I regret it.”

 

 

   “No one can blame you for feeling the strain,” Brienne insists, her loyalty so thickly comforting that it warms Shireen in a way not even the woolliest jumper does these days, she is always cold now it seems, like summer has come to everyone but her,

 

 

   “But you have people willing to help lift the burden, if you'll let us.”

 

 

   “I know,” Shireen murmurs, and she wishes she had the energy to make it decisive, to make it a proclamation, a statement of absolute faith instead of a lonely girl's sad utterance.

 

 

   Nothing more is said until Brienne pulls up in front of Shireen's address, and then she gets out before Shireen can formulate what she has just realised, and she crosses to open Shireen's door dutifully although it very much is not her job, and Shireen looks up into her calm, serious face and says,

 

 

   “Brienne, this is my car - how will you get home?”

 

 

   “With your permission, I'll drive this back, and fetch you in it tomorrow for our session,” Brienne says stoically, and Shireen lets her help her out with one strong hand, and shakes her head, overwhelmed by all this aid.

 

 

   “No, Brienne - you're not my driver,” she protests, and Brienne shrugs, handing her bag to her and then shutting the car door and leading Shireen towards the house.

 

 

   “No,” she says easily,

 

 

   “I am your personal assistant, your trainer, and - I hope - outside the confines of the work environment, your friend, if you need one. I don't mind doing this for you. I don't expect anything in return.”

 

 

   Shireen's hand automatically digs through her bag for her house key while she closes her eyes in defeat and mumbles,

 

 

   “Brienne, I can't accept - ”

 

 

   “Really, Shireen. I'm insisting. I'll see you tomorrow at seven for our session - the weather forecast says the temperature won't pick up until midday, so dress appropriately, we'll be outside for the first hour,” Brienne interrupts, brisk and businesslike, but warm, and accompanied by two identical firm grips on Shireen's shoulders, and there is no resistance possible against this relentless caring.

 

 

   “I don't know how to thank you,” Shireen admits,

 

 

   “I don't know how this works.”

 

 

   “There's no need. That's how it works,” Brienne tells her with a smile, and Shireen nods, fitting her key into the lock when Brienne releases her and steps back, and she can hear Brienne fidgeting, and clearing her throat, and she turns back to see why, and then Brienne ducks her head and all in a rush says,

 

 

   “You know - you're a credit to your family, Shireen. You shouldn't doubt that. It's not your fault they're no credit to you.”

 

 

   Shireen stands in the doorway speechlessly as Brienne turns on her heel and walks back towards the car, and she watches her drive away without moving, without knowing what she's supposed to do with herself now, because there is nothing she can say to such a thing, not even into the darkness of her own empty driveway, so she closes and locks her door and turns on her lights, and walks through an empty house in silence, and it isn't until she's facedown in her bed again that she realises that she isn't angry, and she misses it, because without the anger, the girl on her bed is just alone.

 

 

   -


	3. Too Much Attitude To Get Where I'm Going

 

 

 

   Rickon has been waiting impatiently for today ever since he left last week on her command, the good mood it inspired lasting maybe all of a day and a half before he lapsed again into sullenness at the idea that he'll have to go back at all not because he now sort of wants to so he can see her again but because he is being _made_ to.

 

 

   In fact, he heartily resents his parents for having the outright _gall_ to interpret his relative high spirits for that short time after he got back from that last meeting where she told him _just_ where to go in so many words as proof that this bollocks is having _the desired effect_ and helping him with his _issues_ , because _fuck_ that and fuck _them_ for insisting on hoping for some kind of miraculous change in him so he'll be more like Bran or Robb or even _Jon_ for fuck's sake, and for completely ruining how oddly calm and centred and purposeful his little run-in with _her_ made him feel.

 

 

   He's sure he could have made it another full day floating on the way every time his hair brushes his cheek it's like the ghost of her hand on him and he can't bend down without remembering how she bent him quite literally to her will, and while he doesn't really care that his mother is still convinced that he somehow managed to crash Jon's bike without there being any evidence of it anywhere except on Rickon personally, what he really hates is that they wouldn't just leave him alone, that they can't not let their good intentions and their overbearing overdue-too-late-bye parenting interfere in everything until he can't even enjoy the proof that _she_ touched him because every time his mother sees the marks she clucks and fusses and their pervasive desperation for a sign that this whole group therapy thing might _fix his problems_ does nothing but make him want to hate it more just to spite them for that.

 

 

   He certainly can't openly look forward to going back even though privately he does because he wants to see her and listen to her this time so he'll at least know her name, and perversely he's caught himself these last few days where the bruises have been fading hoping he can maybe incite her to give him new ones to remember her by until next time, even though he knows full well that is a crazy and unhealthy road to go down mentally, which is a thing he almost wants to tell his family just so that he can hold it up to them as an example of why he _really_ doesn't belong here, because he actually _does_ know the difference between poor impulse control and actual flat-out fucking self-destruction.

 

 

   He doesn't actually really want her to hit him. He mostly wants to know whether the bruise he is convinced she must have on her leg matches the one it left on his ribs and whether they could still be lined up recognisably as being from the same point of contact and event.

 

 

   He really wants to know her name, and why she fights like she's used to having to, and why she's going to a place where it's supposedly all about managing anger if she only fights back when it's justified, because Rickon will admit before God - and mean it despite lack of faith - that he provoked her on purpose and he deserved to be knocked down a peg. He bears her not an ounce of ill will for doing it, but he really, really wants to know who she is and why she comes to these things dressed like she's come straight from the office when she can't be that much older than he is, not that he's much of a judge of these things because Sansa has looked so much more mature than she is for far longer than Rickon has ever been comfortable with even if she is now very much a legal adult whereas he is very much still not.

 

 

   He didn't tell Sansa about the eggshell silk blouse or about how there's a very good chance that little fleck of blood from the negligible cut on his cheek may have ruined it forever if he's understood anything about that sort of thing at all from the way Sansa goes on.

 

 

   Mostly because he doesn't want her to know about any of it, but also because a childish part of him does not want to admit to his sister that he listens very closely to everything she says, even the things which are very much not something he is interested in, like for example how hard it is to wash thin silk garments or that shoes like the ones the scarred girl was wearing at the last meeting are not appropriate footwear if you'll be walking around a lot outside, further supporting Rickon's mental image of this serious, dutiful girl as coming to these ridiculous meetings after ducking out of work early. Probably being driven there by someone else. Who is probably if not a spouse then a significant other of some kind because girls like that are always in long term committed relationships with equally serious and dutiful career-oriented people, whom they get engaged to, and while the ring that cut him was not on the right hand for that - although that would be poetic irony given how he's finished himself off to the thought of their altercation every night for a straight week - Rickon would not at all be surprised if it's one of those deals where she gets a _promise ring_ as a kind of placeholder for an understanding that someday-your-prince-will-actually-pop-the-question-so-don't-go-anywhere which have always seemed to Rickon like a pretty flimsy arrangement.

 

 

   If you're going to commit, fucking _commit_.

 

 

   Particularly in the case of girls like that, because how often do they come around? _Not bloody often._

 

 

   She's actually already there when he arrives though, so he has no idea how she got there, but she clearly did, in little cream-coloured flat leather slippers - _ballerinas_ , he thinks, Sansa has a pair in every colour under the sun, she even has a pair that rolls up into nothing that she keeps in the dark void of hell that is her purse - that peek out at the bottom of black fitted trousers that match the black blazer she's wearing on top that just makes her hair look even more alive against the drab backdrop, and the cream cuffs of whatever blouse she's got under there today which is probably not the one he bled on peek out at her wrists but don't hide the fact that her knuckles on both hands are battered and scraped where she is carefully holding a steaming white plastic cup of something as she speaks in low tones with their _esteemed host_ who is nodding at her with sympathy.

 

 

   Rickon lurks by the doorway not because he wants to eavesdrop but because he wants to look at her before she notices he's there, but he can't help overhearing that she says something about,

 

 

   “... the wrong way,” which makes Elder Brother - Rickon rolls his eyes to himself - nod even more sympathetically and say,

 

 

   “Of course, we'd understand - if you really don't feel that you can go on, you need to make that choice, but I do hope you'll reconsider. You've been making real progress.”

 

 

   She murmurs something else, not having one of those female voices which is too high not to cut through the air even when lowered for privacy, and Rickon grits his teeth at the way Elder Brother smiles down at her and puts a comforting hand on her arm and says,

 

 

   “Of course, Shireen, if you'll excuse me..?” not because Rickon is jealous - he isn't _crazy_ , he can handle the idea that there are people in her life who know and talk to and touch her with her consent, he is not one of those people, but he's not one of _those_ people either, to his mind _those_ people are only a very shaky step above the Bolton's of this world and they've only got one leg to stand on before the fall - but because Rickon wanted to hear her name from her own lips, wanted her to tell him herself, so although he's glad she is now free to be approached, he irrationally hates Elder Brother for inadvertently stealing that moment of personal introduction from him.

 

 

   He's not really disposed towards creeping - there's an element of dishonesty to acting that way which is abhorrent to him and in any case he likes to only do things he actually means to do meaning they're actions he can defend, so he tends to reserve stealth for situations where it's called for, like spying on his brothers or helping Osha with game keeping duties on the estate - and in any case sneaking up on a girl who is holding a clearly very hot beverage that closely to her chest seems like a very bad idea, so he doesn't.

 

 

   Instead he walks towards her and takes the long route, making sure his boots stomp so he isn't sneaking unintentionally as he has been told he sometimes manages to do, and circles around her until they're face to face so there's no way she hasn't seen and heard him coming.

 

 

   He is not going to court having what he can now see is hot tea flung at him, nor does the idea of her jumping with the shock of his materialisation and basically pouring it down her own blouse much appeal to him as a concept. He's been scalded once as a child who got into everything and it was awful, and while he doesn't think this girl's scars are from that, she'd probably hate him if his actions led to her acquiring new ones.

 

 

   She looks at him calmly, but doesn't speak to him, and he notices that even despite the enforced distance of a few steps, without a modest heel she really is very, very small compared to him, so he takes another half step back to spare her having to crane her neck up at him although he's sure that would be something because she has a very pretty neck, and he'd planned to grin at her, but he finds himself looking at the bruises on her hands and instead he asks,

 

 

   “What happened? That can't all be from me,” and she blinks very slowly like she needs time to ask her gods for the strength to deal with him, and in a smooth and professional sort of tone says,

 

 

   “It isn't.”

 

 

   That seems to be all she's willing to part with, so he does grin at her, and then he teases,

 

 

   “I'm kind of disappointed now - we don't match anymore.”

 

 

   “I'm sure we never really did,” she says, cryptic but layered with potential meaning, but he lets it be because she's willingly talking to him, and brings up what he really wanted from today.

 

 

   “Another thing we didn't really is get properly introduced. I'm Rickon Stark,” he says as politely as he can force himself to do it, and she sips her tea like it isn't clearly so hot it's a wonder her lip doesn't blister, and keeps looking at him.

 

 

   “I'm Shireen,” she tells him, and while he knows that not everyone who goes to shit like this is comfortable putting their whole identity out there because not everyone is like Rickon and feels that they don't have to be ashamed of being here because they've done nothing wrong since the whole _reason_ things like this exist is so that people who feel they _have_ problems can come and try and deal with the shame of that and work out ways to suppress whatever behaviours cause those problems, Rickon still wants her last name.

 

 

   He's not going to stalk her online or anything, not that he thinks there'd be anything worth finding, she seems too responsible to have a very public online private life out there somewhere, he just... wants to know who she really is.

 

 

   “Not that you need to be anything else, but are you?” he asks, and she clearly understands what he's saying, because she shores up her neutral expression and says very clearly,

 

 

   “I'm a lot of things, Rickon Stark.”

 

 

   He watches her knock back her tea in two pulls like she's doing penance shots at a bar and he has no idea what her throat must be lined with to take that level of abuse but it sends his thoughts to a dark place and so he's not equipped to do anything about the way she sidesteps him and puts her empty cup in a bin before walking steadily into the room where the little circle of chairs has already been set up, and she's already seated when he stumbles in behind her, but he does snag a chair right across from her again, waiting for _EB-I-insist_ to sit down and call things to order, and she doesn't spare him so much as a glance even though he's sitting up properly and paying attention.

 

 

   Not that she _should_ look at him to reward him for not slouching and glaring like he did last time, but it'd be nice if she _did_ look at him just because.

 

 

   “Shireen, I know you've been having a difficult week, would you like to start?” Elder Brother asks kindly, in that no-pressure-go-ahead voice he uses when things have kicked off, and Shireen squares her shoulders as if she wasn't already pin-straight perfect posture in her seat and begins.

 

 

   “I had a lapse, last week, and it put me in a position where I started to think that I needed to be angry because the alternatives aren't something I can handle...”

 

 

   -


	4. Take It - Nothing Else To Do

 

 

 

   He's been staring at her since they sat down and she vaguely made a note of it at the beginning of the hour and then dismissed it because they'd just spoken and she is by now so used to being stared at that she really doesn't put much energy into noticing and obsessing over it anymore, not when there are so many other things she needs to be aware of, but apart from a few glances at her abused hands and - oddly, she thinks - her feet, the Stark boy stares at her openly throughout the entire session without fail even when EB asks him if he'd like to say something, his only response to which is a very curt ' _No_ '.

 

 

   Shireen has been hovering in the comfortably numbed sweet spot between bone-deep exhaustion and debilitating mental fatigue since at least Wednesday afternoon, so once she's said her piece she lets everything else just wash over her, not really interested in paying attention to anything else now that she has vented, which was her only goal for today's session, but she is also not very interested in being paid attention to, and she can't leave in the middle of things because that would be rude, so instead she sits there like the Stark boy isn't trying to take her apart with his eyes and does not so much avert her gaze as pick a spot on the wall and fixate on it until her vision blurs out and joins the haze in her ears.

 

 

   It's oddly restful, but it doesn't last as long as she probably needs it to before EB has risen and is thanking them all for a productive effort and wishing them a good weekend, and Shireen stands automatically and realises that she didn't bring anything in with her so there's no bag at her feet she needs to remember, and then she sets her shoulders deliberately and leaves the room with a polite nod to EB, trying not to allow her gait to reveal that every muscle from her eyelashes downwards is burning like a thousand sons of bitches.

 

 

   “Miss Shireen,” she hears when she's just about to step from the cool shadows of indoors and into the unforgiving brightness of mid-afternoon sunlight reflecting between beige gravel and a clear sky, and for a moment she is disoriented because it's coming from behind her and she's expecting Brienne who would not have come inside, she'll be waiting with the car, and then she realises that the voice is wrong, too, and what she's in for.

 

 

   “Mr. Stark,” she replies, trying not to grit her teeth and opening the door so she can leave the building and maybe breathe a deep and cleansing breath for the good of her waning patience with life, and although she doesn't hold the door for him he doesn't comment on it, just slides out by her side and then sort of hovers in her periphery.

 

 

   “You didn't lapse,” he tells her, like he'd fucking know, and she looks up at him as coolly and detachedly as she possibly can when she'd like to jump at him and claw his eyes out because he's looking at her so intently, like he's concerned, and it makes her so angry she feels lightheaded and has to fold her hands together loosely in front of her so she won't be tempted to lash out.

 

 

   “I did,” she says neutrally, and he frowns like he's going to argue and Shireen prays that Brienne is just around the corner because before any god who may be watching she swears if he argues with her she will put him through the lovely stained glass panel beside the door that is probably as old as this part of the building.

 

 

   “No, you didn't,” he insists, and she digs her nails into her crusted, healing knuckles and sucks a slight breath in through her teeth, but he goes on,

 

 

   “You just reacted to something, and you have every right to do that.”

 

 

   Oh.

 

 

   “You think I was talking about you,” she understands, and then she unfolds her hands and lets her arms hang loose, looking at the way his expression shifts to confirm it,

 

 

   “I did lapse there - I should not have struck you - but I was not referring to that.”

 

 

   “I don't blame you for doing it, I had it coming,” he says like he's not quite sure what to do with her relentless calm, almost like he was all geared up for an argument about their set-to and now he's got nowhere to put the reserves he'd earmarked for it, and it's almost funny to a fatigued, harassed Shireen that she's put that so far behind her this past week and yet he's clearly been waiting to bring it up and thought that was all she could possibly have going on to be referring to in there, and if she weren't so shattered she would probably be laughing.

 

 

   “You did, and it's done, and I do regret giving in to the urge, but honestly, you can't really think you're the first person who has ever looked at me and felt the need to comment because what you were seeing didn't really work for you,” she says with sharp frankness,

 

 

   “I've been called far worse than anything you alluded to last week. I objected to your general behaviour because it was disruptive and immature and misplaced, that's what really made me angry - I honestly don't give a single shit what you think of me or how you phrase it, I don't have the _time_ to go about reacting to every little negative thing people say about the way they perceive me.”

 

 

   “But you're allowed to do that,” he insists stubbornly, and she does laugh because no, people are not allowed to do that, people like her who react like she does and who are put in a situation where they can react like that are not allowed to just give themselves free rein in that, too much responsibility rests on her shoulders and she cannot allow herself to just piss all over that and respond to every insult, every jibe the way she really wants to.

 

 

   She has half a lifetime's worth of sad silence built up but she does not have the luxury of being able to act on that now that she actually can, and that does fuel her anger but it doesn't give her leave to give in to it.

 

 

   “No, I'm not,” she replies harshly, and it clangs discordantly with the last of her laughter,

 

 

   “No one is, that's not how the world works. Gods, do you think you're _special_ , Rickon Stark? Do you think you're the first boy I've ever punched for being _mean_ to me? That you were even the worst? You may have deserved it, but that doesn't excuse my reaction - why do you think I held back? The only reason I _could_ hold back is because you were not even close to being the worst of the bastards I've dealt with over the years, and because I come here, among other places, and work to keep myself in check, because for some of us, if we start believing that we have the right to whatever reaction comes naturally to us when we're attacked somehow, we will end up doing real damage to ourselves and others, and that is _not_ acceptable!”

 

 

   She's raised her voice a little and she is desperately trying to control her breathing, and she can feel her damaged skin splitting open again on one hand where she has clenched her fist much too tightly, but too late she realises that she is gesturing between them with the other, and so she almost doesn't manage to snatch it back before he can touch it when he reaches up as if to pluck it from midair, but she is just quick enough and takes a step back for good measure, pressing her lips together to stop any more vitriol escaping her without her absolute consent.

 

 

   “Is that how that happened? Someone said something worse?” he asks her sombrely, glancing at her hand which is curled up and resting over her chest now even though he's not really close enough anymore to get her and he's let his hand fall anyway.

 

 

   “No,” she expels, because it's none of his fucking business what happened to her at any point in time, struggling to control her expression and remove her frown, but she feels like all she manages is to tone down the anger to a manageable irritation, and that's not good enough, she can't afford to be this unwound for her meeting, she can't -

 

 

   “Miss Baratheon?”

 

 

   Shireen turns so swiftly she feels her hair loosen from where she gathered it earlier, and she is horrified that she didn't even notice Brienne pulling up in the car and simultaneously so grateful to see her that she feels her eyes overheat and begin to prickle, and she just strides towards where Brienne is standing in the open driver's side door and smiles at her weakly, shaking her head at her when Brienne frowns and makes as if to follow her around to open her door for her.

 

 

   Inside the car it is cool and safe and she slams her door moments before Brienne slams her own, and keeps her face turned as far from where Rickon Stark is still standing as left and murmurs,

 

 

   “Let's go, Brienne, please,” and has never been more thankful for Brienne's stoic silence as she obediently takes them onto the main road. They have long left the village behind when Brienne breaks her silence, and Shireen has been waiting for it for the last five minutes at least, so she is not surprised.

 

 

   “That boy - the cut on his cheek... Is he the one you..?” Brienne tries to ask, as delicately as possible, and Shireen sighs because she should have known that would be obvious.

 

 

   “Yes,” she admits,

 

 

   “But it was nothing - he's just an overgrown child. I lost my temper.”

 

 

   “So he insulted you?” Brienne surmises, and Shireen looks across at the angry tilt to her mouth and smiles, reaching over to pat Brienne's hand and tell her with weary gratitude,

 

 

   “No, not really. But thank you for caring. I don't want you to worry about that; we've got more important things to think about.”

 

 

   “I don't see why you have to bring _him_ into it,” Brienne says unhappily, and Shireen sighs.

 

 

   “You know I wouldn't if I didn't have to. With uncle Robert dead and father gone, there's no one else. I've no choice,” she reminds Brienne, closing her eyes against the thought of it.

 

 

   “He always insults you, they _both_ do,” Brienne complains, but it's more than that, there's residual shock that Shireen knows she will probably never get over because it is so foreign to her that Shireen's uncle would be so cruel to his own niece, and allow those close to him to be even crueller.

 

 

   “It's nothing, Brienne. They said much worse about my mother. They say worse about my father. You should hear them talk about uncle Robert's family... I really don't care, I just wish they wouldn't waste my time with it, they go on forever before we can get anything done,” Shireen laments, exhausted, and she can feel Brienne hesitate before asking carefully,

 

 

   “Have you been sleeping?”

 

 

   “Oh,” Shireen waves it away, her hand flopping back onto her lap almost as soon as she's lifted it,

 

 

   “What's the use. Trying just makes things worse. I lie there for hours and can't relax anyway, I've just given up. It'll go back to normal soon.”

 

 

   “It'll be at least an hour before we get to Storm's End,” Brienne murmurs diplomatically, the soft rumble of her voice melding with that of the engine,

 

 

   “Your mask is in the glove compartment if you'd like to rest your eyes on the way there.”

 

 

   “Brienne... I can't take a nap,” Shireen protests, but she opens the glove compartment anyway and lo and behold there is her black silk sleeping mask with the lavender filling, and she is suddenly just overwhelmed with gratitude for everything Brienne is bothering to do for her, ferrying her about and staying late with her at the office and training with her every day this week even despite the long hours she puts in at work, that she sobs just once before she can rein it in, and then she glances wetly at Brienne whose neutral expression is firmly trained on the road, and she finds herself nodding.

 

 

   “Alright... I'll - I'm just resting my eyes,” she echoes, sliding the mask over her face and blocking out the light, and her hand finds the seat reclining controls on its own and she tips her seat back to a less rigidly upright position as Brienne hums.

 

 

   “Alright, Miss Shireen - I'll let you know when we're almost there,” she says quietly, and Shireen lets the sound of her voice swirl into her head and mingle with the sound of the road under their wheels, endless and soothing like waves, and before she knows it she's gone.

 

 

   -


	5. The Bitch Is Getting Ready To Make My Life Unsteady

 

 

 

   Brienne brings her out of her nap in a lay-by to a quiet country road, and when Shireen wakes she is not so much refreshed as she is simply aware that even less than an hour of actual sleep has dulled some of the aches in her limbs and sharpened her awareness, and Brienne gives her a few minutes to refresh her appearance before she takes them to the gate at the end of the driveway and then she turns to Shireen and murmurs,

 

 

   “We could just postpone,” and that is how Shireen knows that Brienne is just as desperate as she is not to have to endure this abuse today, but by the defeated set to her mouth Shireen sees that she also knows just as well as she that postponing will only make it worse.

 

 

   “We'll get through it,” she insists, and Brienne sighs but takes them up the driveway, her face growing more stoic the more of Storm's End comes into view, and Shireen steels herself.

 

 

   She is always punctual, which is why when they pull up in front of the house her uncle is already standing in the doorway looking casual in that very studied way she cannot remember him ever being without, holding the glass of wine she also has only a few memories of seeing him without, mocking smirk in place, but Shireen refuses to rise to it as Brienne acts the driver and gets the door for her and her bag and follows Shireen into hell.

 

 

   “Uncle Renly,” Shireen greets him, withstanding the look he sweeps over her and then the way he purses his lips at the sight of her hands like he'd expected better from her.

 

 

   None of it is real, so she doesn't have to care.

 

 

   “Shireen, it's been too long, I'd forgotten how drab and dull you are. Your father would be so proud. I see you brought Miss Tarth,” her uncle says with false courtesy slathered on after the jab, and Shireen just watches him, face as impassive as she can make it.

 

 

   “Well, come in, let's get this over with,” he sighs, as though having his niece come to see him regarding the business the success of which built the estate he's sitting pretty in and bought and imported the wine in his hand and all the rest of it in his cellars is a massive imposition, and Shireen just follows him silently into the hall as he waves a hand for them to deposit their things if they must and then asks like it's an afterthought,

 

 

   “Will either of you be joining us for wine?”

 

 

   “No, thank you,” Shireen tells him neutrally, and she doesn't miss the rolling of his eyes as he rounds a corner, knowing he is headed towards the sun room because it is his preferred living and entertaining space.

 

 

   “No, of course not, you're always on duty, aren't you? Honestly, even your father liked a drink now and then - then again, he was married to your mother,” her uncle jokes nastily, and Shireen grits her teeth.

 

 

   “Your wife not in?” she asks, though she knows what the answer is going to be, and true to form Renly does not disappoint in disappointing, waving a dismissive hand and shrugging,

 

 

   “Oh, she's travelling somewhere - she prefers a more southern climate.”

 

 

   “Honestly, you know she's in Italy,” comes the silken drawl from the door to the sun room as they pass through, and Shireen holds back a little bit as her uncle waltzes in and then throws himself onto the sofa next to his lover, wine glass perfectly steady before he sips and then gestures with it to Shireen and Brienne, prompting with slight impatience,

 

 

   “Well come on then!”

 

 

   Shireen takes a careful seat on the sofa opposite them, keeping her gaze fixed on her uncle's face and ignoring the way Loras watches her from his lazy sprawl beside Renly, matching wine glass in hand and mocking glitter in his eye despite the relaxed expression on his face. It is a put on. Most things about him are, she's found. Brienne sits stiffly next to her and Shireen wishes she could afford the weakness of some reassuring gesture to her, but now is not the time.

 

 

   “Does he have to be here?” she asks her uncle neutrally, not needing to name names, but she does have the satisfaction of Loras' sharp hiss in her direction.

 

 

   “Does she have to be here?” Renly counters, raising an eyebrow at Brienne, and following it with another falsely polite,

 

 

   “Not that you aren't welcome, Miss Tarth. It's just that chauffeurs usually wait in the car.”

 

 

   “Brienne is my personal assistant, and she drove me here for convenience,” Shireen tells him as if he didn't already know, and Renly shrugs carelessly and puts his free hand on Loras' upper thigh.

 

 

   “Well, Loras is my personal assistant,” he lies loftily, even though it's pointless and his smirk exclaims almost proudly that he knows it, that he knows he is wasting her time.

 

 

   “Yes, and that's what I'll tell anyone who asks, just like I have done since I was nine and found the two of you fucking on my bed at my birthday party because it was too much effort to wait until you finished your wine and could leave without offending my parents,” Shireen replies with precise and measured professionalism, like the memory doesn't carry with it the added memory of her uncle gripping her stick-thin arms and ordering her in begging, wheedling tones not to say anything to anyone about it, shaking her slightly on every other word, talking about things like _duty_ and _family_ and _inheritance_ as if he cared about anything but the last one and himself.

 

 

   “Things happen when you're young and beautiful and in love with someone who is passionate about you,” Loras says airily, smirking at her, and then he pulls an exaggeratedly sad face and pouts,

 

 

   “Aw, but you'll never know, will you dear?”

 

 

   Brienne starts forward with a cold, hard expression twisting her mouth, but Shireen immediately puts a hand on her arm and Brienne sits back rigidly, though her glare remains hot on Loras who just throws back his head and laughs.

 

 

   “Oh, _really!_ Oh, sweetie, you're not fucking Bruiser are you? The way she leaps to your defence, you'd almost think it,” he mocks, and Renly chuckles once before he clamps down on it but he doesn't intervene, so Loras twirls a lock of his hair between his fingers and sneers,

 

 

   “But of course, _you_ wouldn't, would you? Even if you weren't practically asexual, it wouldn't be _proper_ to fuck an employee, would it? I swear that's the only thing that separates you from your wretched father. You're both so incredibly dull but at least he - ”

 

 

   “This is why I prefer to do these things without him present,” Shireen cuts across smoothly, eyes fixed on Renly,

 

 

   “We could be done so much sooner if he didn't have to spend all this time flapping his cunt in the breeze.”

 

 

   Renly barks a laugh at that which he doesn't quite get under control fast enough for Loras' taste if the way he glares daggers at her uncle is any indication, but Renly does clear his throat and then nod and in a semi-serious tone say,

 

 

   “Let's get this over with, shall we?”

 

 

   Loras slumps back into the sofa with a huff at the sign that there'll be no more fun to be had for him, and starts buffing his nails, as Brienne sits up even straighter like a sentinel by Shireen's side, but Shireen dismisses everything except her uncle's slouch and inadequately businesslike demeanour. He isn't really taking this seriously, she knows. He never has.

 

 

   It's among the reasons Shireen is content to leave him here at Storm's End with his ex-olympic-fencer-though-nothing-much-ever-came-of-that lover and his sham of a marriage to his lover's sister, and handle things at the company herself, but Renly remains a major shareholder and so she can't manoeuvre without him on board even though at the end of these little meetings she'd like nothing more than to tie him in a weighted sack and throw him into the Mariana Trench.

 

 

   “I am concerned about the way my father has recently been allocating company funds and property,” she begins, and beside her uncle Loras scoffs and rolls his eyes but doesn't speak, so she continues,

 

 

   “And honestly, you should be, too. It was one thing when he gave those people Dragonstone, but if he truly plans to marry this woman, I don't believe for a moment that it will end there. You know as well as I do how long she's been working on him - do you really believe that once an appropriate mourning period has passed that he won't marry her and start giving her and that ridiculous cult anything she wants?”

 

 

   “Why should we care? As long as he doesn't neglect the company, our shares are safe,” Renly says dismissively, and Shireen resists the urge to clench her hands at his stupidity.

 

 

   “You know, as far as midlife-crises go, I have to say that Stannis' is one for the books,” Loras comments idly, and Shireen has a brief moment of disorientation where she can actually feel his hair between her fingers and hear the sound his face would make as she slams it into the coffee table.

 

 

   “You don't think that shagging your personal assistant out of wedlock is just a touch cliché and overdone?” Renly asks his lover, laden with sickly sweet meaning, and Loras laughs.

 

 

   “Oh, really - every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead at least once in his life,” Loras jokes, and Renly smirks at him and shakes his head.

 

 

   “You know as well as I do that woman was never a real redhead,” he reproaches insincerely, and Loras shrugs exaggeratedly and counters,

 

 

   “Well neither was Lucille Ball!”

 

 

   “Maybe not, but it suited her a damn sight better - and now is not the time for Lucille Ball!” Renly admonishes, but it carries no weight, he doesn't mean it, they are wasting time, this means nothing to them because they're too wrapped up in themselves to see -

 

 

   “It is always the time for Lucille Ball!”

 

 

   “Perhaps that time could wait until after I have left?” Shireen says through her teeth, and Renly sobers slightly, crossing his legs and gesturing to her with his glass.

 

 

   “You're right - I'm sorry dear but we just can't help you. As long as that bitch has a chokehold on your father's cock, she's got one on his finances too. Unless you can somehow prove to him that she's unworthy of his affections, such as they are, I honestly don't think there's anything you can do about her,” he says with harsh frankness tempered only by how obvious it is that he doesn't really care for her predicament as long as he is assured that his own business is safe.

 

 

   “And what will happen to you when she feels she's got her hooks in far enough that she can start asking for more?” Shireen demands, gratified at the slight hesitance that enters her uncle's eyes,

 

 

   “Think about it - she's not stupid. She waited until she knew there was no hope of my mother ever standing between her and my father, brainwashed her and had her convince him to give those people Dragonstone, had my mother all but _encourage_ she and my father to have the affair, and then _suddenly_ my mother is no longer an obstacle, and there's nothing to prevent her from getting everything.”

 

 

   She allows herself to cast a contemptuous glance at Loras where he is idly inspecting his shiny nails, and then she focuses on her uncle again, enjoying his perturbed expression, and asking him ruthlessly,

 

 

   “Do you honestly think that woman hasn't found out about the two of you? That she doesn't know that if this comes out, you'll lose Storm's End? The legalities might take a while and you could contest the terms of inheritance, but she can wait longer than you and my father would support her.”

 

 

   “You've never told - ” Renly starts, leaning forward like he's prepared to go for her throat, blanched and shaken, and she feels so enraged at the very idea that she would betray his confidence even despite everything he's done that she finds she can't suppress her temper.

 

 

   “Oh for fuck's sake, of course I haven't!” she shouts, making Loras jump and look at her like he's never seen her before,

 

 

   “The two of you are the worst kept secret in the family, the only reason no one contested the fucking will is because you went ahead and married like you were supposed to and however little you may think of my father, you did your duty and fulfilled the terms and so he left it alone because they never specified that you have a _good_ marriage, just that you have one! I kept your secret for years before I realised that everyone already knew - you're not exactly subtle - and even then I told no one! Margaery hasn't actually lived with the two of you for more than a few weeks at a time since the wedding - you went on separate honeymoons! How _dare_ you sit there and think that _I've_ given you away - how dare you try and wipe that off on me like I'm the curtain of my own four-poster bed - and yes I _do_ remember that - ”

 

 

   She hisses the last viciously at Loras, who actually recoils from her slightly, although he doesn't look ashamed of what has to be the least appetising part of her recollection of that day.

 

 

   “I never took you for an idiot Renly, but if you can't see what's going to happen if that bloody woman isn't stopped before she actually marries my father, then you are every inch the fool he's always thought you,” she condemns him, not bothering to soften her blows anymore,

 

 

   “Melisandre wanted a home for her cult, so she convinced my mother that joining might finally solve all her problems, and because my mother was weak and no one could be bothered to try and protect her from herself and leeches like Asshai, it took three months before that woman was in my father's bed with my mother's blessing and Dragonstone was signed over to Melisandre's merry band of cult-worshipping cunts. Storm's End is a much bigger estate, with far more financial potential. Do you really think she won't set her sights on it as soon as she has enough of a foothold to believe she could take it? Do you really think she isn't just waiting for that chance? Robert's not here to shield you anymore, Renly, and you've made very sure my father won't try very hard to, particularly not if his new wife turns it into a scandal and there's the slightest hint it might come out that the family knew all along and just never did anything about it.”

 

 

   “Well what the fuck do you expect _us_ to do about it?” Renly snaps, waspish and unsettled,

 

 

   “I can't go back in time and never find Loras, never love him. If she knows, she knows, and if she can prove it, I don't see what we can do about that either, except wait for her to make her move and then contest the terms of inheritance and hope it falls in our favour.”

 

 

   “You can help me prove that she is just out to bleed my father dry on behalf of her stupid cult,” Shireen bites back,

 

 

   “Before it's too late and she can prove a legal claim by marriage. You know my father thinks prenuptial agreements are nonsense - if he marries her, he'll be leaving us all vulnerable.”

 

 

   “And how do you propose we do that? Are you having her watched? Do you honestly think your father will take it seriously if I tell him that his charming fiancée is just trying to drain the family coffers, playing a long con?” Renly asks contemptuously, more for her father than for her she sees but it makes her no less furious.

 

 

   “You know she hired Davos' son when she went from father's personal assistant to his mistress to take her place - I imagine she hoped he'd be so blinded by her cleavage and his father's relationship with mine that he wouldn't question what was going on - but he's been reporting back to Davos for months about her movements and my father's increasingly erratic behaviour. He started just after my mother died,” she reveals, and Renly snorts derisively, taking a long sip of his wine and then sneering,

 

 

   “Yes, I suppose it must have seemed strange even to the Seaworth brat that your mother only lasted a month with the cult she claimed had brought her _'a new lease on life'_ before she hung herself on what is now _their_ estate.”

 

 

   “Don't whine, you never wanted that place, all those tacky gargoyles,” Loras chides him, hearing as Shireen does that the bulk of Renly's malcontent lies in the fact that something which has always been Baratheon property, and originally would have gone to Renly had Robert not amended his will shortly before his untimely death, has somehow ended up in the clutches of a cult through a combination of Selyse's weakness and the machinations of someone Renly considers beneath them all, however attractive she may be, by virtue of her not being from a wealthy family.

 

 

   “That doesn't mean those people should have it,” Renly snaps, frowning over the rim of his glass and staring at the wall behind Shireen's head for a moment as if thinking. Loras wisely does not pursue the topic, but Shireen can see that he chafes at for once not being given his way, the coddled little tosser.

 

 

   “She'll come for Storm's End, too. She'll take everything. Father will let her, you've seen how easily she manipulates him,” Shireen goads, watching her uncle intently, and beside him, Loras shifts and then asks in an insinuating tone,

 

 

   “When did you last hear from the Seaworth boy? What's his name - Devon?”

 

 

   “Devan,” Shireen replies curtly, and Loras nods thoughtfully, and smirks, the expression nasty because he's very pretty but there's no face that could sweeten that look.

 

 

   “That's right,” he says slowly, relishing whatever ugly thing he's about to do,

 

 

   “As I recall the two of you used to be quite an item. When _did_ he last get in touch?”

 

 

   “Davos hasn't heard from him in several weeks,” Shireen divulges although at this point she'd rather rip out a chunk of her own hair and shove it down Loras' throat,

 

 

   “He doesn't contact me directly - I don't want Asshai to connect the two of us or think we still speak personally.”

 

 

   “Well, you don't,” Loras points out like it's something delicious,

 

 

   “And you don't find it odd at all that Seaworth hasn't heard from his son for weeks? The same son you two have tasked with finding out what Asshai is really up to, or at least to keep tabs on her and your father through proximity? The same son who, last _I_ saw, couldn't keep his eyes off her?”

 

 

   “He's not wrong,” Renly points out, rejoining the conversation to agree with Loras, who smirks darkly with it,

 

 

   “I wouldn't put it past her to seduce the boy, too, if she thought he might be a risk to her little scheme.”

 

 

   “And we already know he's got no standards,” Loras chimes in, and Shireen gives him a flat, bored look.

 

 

   “If you're referring to this imaginary relationship he and I are meant to have had, I have to disappoint you,” she tells him tonelessly, like the idea could not be less interesting to her, and then she looks to Renly instead and sharpens her gaze and her voice,

 

 

   “But I agree that it's worrying that he hasn't checked in for so long. Last we heard she and my father were going to inspect some property the company owns in Ireland. Devan was going with them because it was ostensibly a business trip, but my fear is that she is scouting another location for her bloody cult, or just gathering information on my father's holdings. I know for a fact that she was trying to access similar information while she still worked for him, probably to decide whether going to all this trouble would be worth her while.”

 

 

   “And it will be, unless your father comes to his senses,” Renly muses, once more looking into his glass as if it contains the answers to everything.

 

 

   “He will have to be made to,” Shireen states coldly,

 

 

   “Robert may be dead and his widow an absolute bitch, but even if Cersei has no interest in the company, she will be interested if we buy the shares she inherited. That will put you and I in a position to challenge my father on any major decisions he tries to make - we can block anything that looks like it might have come from Asshai first.”

 

 

   “You always were a clever child,” Renly remarks absently, but she can see his eyes flickering minutely this way and that and knows that he is thinking hard about her plan,

 

 

   “If we approach Cersei with this, we can't let her think she might lose out if she's bought out. She's a greedy bitch but she's not a fool.”

 

 

   “If I didn't think she might just as well ally with Asshai in hopes they can split the profits once they've destroyed everything, I might suggest we tell her the truth, but you know if she thought she'd get more by going that route, she'll do it,” Shireen replies,

 

 

   “Cersei never cared about the family or the company. She hated Robert. If she weren't so pleased with getting the Keep, she'd have made a fuss over Storm's End, too.”

 

 

   Renly hums into his wine, and then seems to make a decision, draining his glass and setting it on the side table before leaning in towards Shireen and proposing,

 

 

   “I'll go and see her. Bring her a case of wine - she likes a drink almost as much as we do - and I'll tell her I want to push Stannis out. She knows I hate him, she'll enjoy the intrigue. I'll tell her I want to do it so I can wrap up the company - she knows I don't care about it, but Stannis does, it'll be a move she can understand, wanting to hurt him - so that I can sell Storm's End and move south and finally be done with all this tedious family nonsense. There's enough truth to the lie that she'll believe it, and if I dangle the prospect of her getting a nice chunk out of it while there's still something to be had before I plan to dissolve the company entirely, as well as the idea that maybe in the not so distant future she might be able to buy Storm's End at a reasonable price...”

 

 

   “You're hoping she's greedy enough not to question why you'd want to do this now when you've been perfectly happy to languish here for years,” Shireen sees, and Renly shrugs slightly, leaning back to sit next to Loras who links their arms.

 

 

   “I'm not like Robert was, and I'm not like your father. I have enough in what I have. I don't need to be a captain of industry - I've never wanted to sit in a huge office with my name on the door and tell people what to do all day. I want to drink wine in the country, shag my boyfriend, and pretend my family doesn't exist,” Renly says with simple honesty,

 

 

   “The Business and Economics degree was unavoidable, but I'll go to great lengths to avoid having to actually use it. The wine import is more a hobby than anything else - we like the tasting holidays.”

 

 

   “Help me destroy that red cunt, and if you want, I'll make it so that the rest of your lives can be one long tasting holiday,” Shireen tells him gravely, and Loras laughs softly.

 

 

   “Oh, sweetie, I highly doubt her carpet matches her drapes!” he jokes, and beside him Renly quirks a smile, and then treats Shireen to an appraising look.

 

 

   “You know, when you're ruthless, you're almost pretty,” he comments softly, and when Shireen does not react, he nods, and says,

 

 

   “Alright. I'll arrange the meeting. I'll let you know when and where, and how it goes. I may not give a shit about your father, and I may not give a shit about your mother, but that Asshai cunt took something from this family that didn't belong to her. That's unacceptable. No one is allowed to take advantage of this family but family.”

 

 

   “Good,” Shireen utters curtly, rising to her feet,

 

 

   “Thank you for meeting with me, I know how busy you are. We'll see ourselves out.”

 

 

   She ignores their insincere goodbyes and strides out the way they came in, Brienne shadowing her, and she makes sure to slam the hulking front door herself, the ironbound wood satisfyingly heavy to wield. If she rests her forehead against it for a moment before she can take a shallow breath and join Brienne by the car where she waits by the open door to hand Shireen in, that is her business.

 

 

   “Am I taking you straight home?” Brienne asks her quietly once they are both in the car and moving slowly down the driveway again, and Shireen stares ahead into the darkening evening and tries to remember that she is a Baratheon, that the name means something.

 

 

   _Ours is the fury_ , state the words on their coat of arms, Robert always preferring the English because _'Latin is a dead language so how the fuck will anyone know what we're about'_.

 

 

   All the fury that's left in their bloodline seems to have been concentrated in her alone, and she wonders how long it will take for it to poison her completely.

 

 

   “Yes, please, Brienne,” she says softly,

 

 

   “I'm tired.”

 

 

   -


	6. Think It's Gonna Turn Around If You Depend On Them?

 

 

 

   She had thought that keeping her appointment today would soothe her, that if nothing else knowing that she was living up to a commitment made to herself would do something to calm her nerves, but all she can think about today, all she's been able to think about since Wednesday is the fact that Cersei agreed to be bought out, that today Shireen will be meeting with Davos personally for the first time in what feels like years to discuss where to go from here because Shireen does not have access to the funds she needs to cover her share of the shares Renly has secured from Cersei, and it needs to be finalised as soon as possible, and when she called Davos yesterday just to confirm all the details for today's meeting at the office he told her that Devan has finally been in touch and that he's actually found something, and -

 

 

   “Shireen, would you like to go next? You seem preoccupied,” EB's gentle voice interrupts her thought process, and Shireen suddenly feels completely wrong footed, put on the spot, like everyone is staring at her intently even though a quick glance tells her that she is being regarded with no more polite interest than usual by the vast majority of their small group, and that one person actually looks half-asleep, so is obviously not judging her lack of mental investment in proceedings.

 

 

   “I - ”

 

 

   Rickon Stark is looking at her like he wants to swallow her whole, like anything she says can and will be used if not against her then certainly for something, and she doesn't know how long he's been doing that but she has a sudden suspicion that it's probably been going on ever since she sat down and he as he prefers to do it seems took a seat opposite her, and she can't grasp a thought to present so she just says,

 

 

   “No, thank you, not today,” and EB lets it go and picks someone else, and Shireen tries to subside back into the eddies of her concerns and anticipations for today, but the slight air of disappointment that has come over the Stark boy jars her, and she feels as though she is somehow very obvious, that she is particularly noticeably terrible-looking even though she was quite satisfied with her clothes and hair when she left the office, felt presentable enough to be seen in public, and she does her best to ignore it and keep still because she is not a fidgeter by nature, but still she finds it hard to let go of the irrational desire to smooth her hair or adjust her posture, and so she focuses her attention deliberately on the papers in her bag and on what she needs to say to Davos.

 

 

   She has a list all planned out, everything that needs to be done, everything that can't wait, which is most things because they do not have the luxury of time and Cersei is a capricious bitch who hasn't actually signed anything yet because there are procedures that need to be seen to before that can happen, and Shireen would not put it past her to suddenly back out of this at an inopportune moment and -

 

 

   “Thank you all so much for coming, enjoy your weekends,” EB is saying, and Shireen frowns at him because surely there was more time and she didn't spend that long obsessing over the way the Stark boy was focusing on her, but the clock on the wall tells her that no, the session is over, and so she gets to her feet and makes for the door.

 

 

   “Miss Baratheon,” accompanies the percussion of boots on linoleum, and she feels a split second of ridiculous irritation that he wears those bloody things because it is practically summery outside these days, but then she finds she can't decide what would actually be more appropriate, can't imagine him in anything but heavy black boots, and she gives up on the thread, there are more important things to be angry about, save yourself Shireen -

 

 

   “Mr. Stark,” she says coolly, knowing she has no hope of outrunning him, not that she'd try, she has her dignity, she does not run from fights or even the potential of them, but he's caught up to her like they're walking together and that is not acceptable.

 

 

   “You do look preoccupied,” he notes, casual as only those with the time to piss about and accost relative strangers with small-talk can be,

 

 

   “Long day at the office?”

 

 

   “You know, I've spoken with EB about this,” she informs him, catching the disgusted, mocking face he pulls at the name out of the corner of her eye but not looking at him directly,

 

 

   “If you refuse to leave me alone, I may have to stop coming.”

 

 

   “Then I won't be coming either,” he replies, light as if it's a joke, and another glance sideways at him proves he's grinning like he's said something funny, but it must be amusing only to him because she certainly isn't laughing.

 

 

   “As I understood it, you have no choice,” she says coldly, and then stops at the door and gives him a hard look where he stands an arm's length away watching her intensely,

 

 

   “And I do, but I choose to be here. I like this group. I have found it helpful for some time now. So let me be clear - if you persist in approaching me here, I will no longer be able to attend these sessions, and that will make me very unhappy. It will also prove you a disrespectful and childish little bollocks with no regard for the boundaries of others. Do we understand each other?”

 

 

   He looks at her for a long, long moment, and she has never seen him so serious, his mouth tight and his eyes dark and full and hard, and she is about to snap at him when he says in a very soft, very sincere voice,

 

 

   “I'm sorry about your mother, Shireen. And your uncle.”

 

 

   It knocks the wind out of her so hard she sways a little bit, and she has to clench her teeth to breathe,

 

 

   “ _How do you know about that?_ Have you been - ”

 

 

   “ _No!_ ” he cuts her off, urgent and low and earnest before she can finish asking about the ugly fear now clogging her chest,

 

 

   “No, I wouldn't - I'd never - I just, my dad knew your uncle, I heard about it, my parents were talking - Shireen, I'm _so_ sorry - ”

 

 

   “You don't know anything,” she manages, shaken and soft, staring wildly at him but not seeing much beyond the twist of his frown,

 

 

   “You know nothing about it - about _them_ \- ” where is Brienne, why isn't she here? Shireen cannot have this discussion with this boy - or with anyone - she cannot handle any more sympathy, any more mention of Robert's death like it's somehow linked to the chain of events that led to her mother's, like they're the same, like they've meant the same thing for where she is now and all the shit she has to deal with -

 

 

   “No, I don't,” he agrees, quiet and grave and suddenly not the jumped-up child with arrogant disdain for the rules of society filling out his overgrown limbs where maturity hasn't quite managed to keep up yet, who absolutely deserved to be knocked down a few pegs and at least had the sense to see it,

 

 

   “I don't know what you're going through, I just know they're dead, and I didn't know that before because I didn't know your name, but now I do, so I am sorry for your losses even if I don't understand what they amount to.”

 

 

   “Neither one of them was any great loss,” she hears herself say, poisonous and resentful and angry in places that are chafed skinless with the emotion by now because it's true, she is tired of being told that people are sorry for her loss, sorry for what she's lost, because she hasn't lost anything - she's gained a massive pile of shit to try and wade out of and clean up as a result of their deaths, but she feels no loss connected with the people themselves, and she is sick of having to politely pretend that she does, that she had any kind of relationship with her overweight, oversexed, overbearing self-styled family patriarch uncle who literally drank himself to death and the mother who could never bring herself to love Shireen but poured all her emotional energy into the hope of a son until it destroyed her,

 

 

   “So thank you for your condolences, Mr. Stark, but they are not necessary. None of this is necessary. If you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be. Please convey my regards to your family.”

 

 

   There's nowhere to go except just beyond the door because there is no one waiting for her, and the worry she feels at that pierces her rage at being accosted with social niceties by perhaps the one person she was not prepared to field them from, making it feel all the more like a malicious ambush even though of course he could have had no idea of the intricacies of the non-relationships within her immediate family, and she pulls out her phone to check for some message from Brienne to explain this abrupt tarnishing of her otherwise flawless record of punctuality because it is seven minutes past the agreed pick-up time and some part of Shireen is clenched in anxious certainty that Brienne must be lying in a ditch somewhere since she is not here as agreed upon, as promised, and -

 

 

   There's no message. There's no message, and in her peripheral view the bloody Stark boy is not making any move to leave even though he could, there's nothing stopping him, his bike is right there, why doesn't he just -

 

 

   A message flickers onto her phone. Voicemail. She's not in Meeting mode so she doesn't understand why her phone didn't just ring, but then she sees the awful signal and realises that she's always either driven herself or arranged specific transport, she has never actually needed to call from here, didn't know that service was so poor, so she should have gotten this message - almost an hour ago.

 

 

   Brienne called almost an hour ago.

 

 

   Shireen immediately goes to check it, and there is at least enough service that she can access her recorded messages, the clear and steady but regretful voice of Brienne soothing her nerves even though what she is saying is exactly what Shireen feared.

 

 

   “ _Miss Shireen, there's been an accident on the road going into the city. I don't know if the block will be lifted by the time we agreed upon for collection - I may be in this queue for some time. I wasn't sure who else to contact regarding your pick-up. If I don't hear from you to confirm that you have made plans, I -_ ”

 

 

   The message cuts out.

 

 

   Shireen presses to repeat it, but again it cuts out.

 

 

   She doesn't know what Brienne may or may not have arranged. There is no plan. She is stranded, for all intents and purposes she is stranded. Even if Brienne arranges for another car, if the roads have been blocked going into the city as little as an hour ago, traffic will be a nightmare and she will not make it into the city for her meeting with Davos. There won't be another chance until next week, and time is of the essence - Brienne is going in to get the paperwork and she may make it to the meeting or be only a little late, but Shireen will not, and she will not be able to speak to Davos in person and hear what he has to say about her plan and what Renly has done, and they will not be able to discuss whatever it is that Devan has seen or heard or found, and that will give Asshai time to move against them, to figure out what Devan has done or plans to do -

 

 

   “... Shireen?”

 

 

   She didn't know she was panicking until the careful, close utterance of her name makes her gasp for breath she can't catch and whirl around to face a very worried-looking Rickon Stark, who is too tall for her to look up at, the evening sunlight too sharp, making her dizzy, making her even more aware that she can't breathe -

 

 

   “Shireen, are you - ” he begins to ask, and she is not, whatever he is going to say she is not, she is not okay, she is not going to be in time to see Davos, she is not going to be in time to stop Asshai from ruining everything, she is not going to be able to save her family's business or reputation, she is _not_ , she is _not_ , she is not _enough_ -

 

 

   Her heart's too loud, she thinks, much, much too loud, and that's not right, it shouldn't sound like that not even if she is panicking, not even in her own head, but then gravel crunches and skitters and sprays and stings the back of her legs and it shocks her so she turns, and...

 

 

   “Shireen, hop on,” Edric grins at her, helmet under his arm, holding one out to her that she takes with numb hands, unable to process the fact that her literal bastard cousin is sitting astride a motorcycle in front of her.

 

 

   “I - Edric - ” she mumbles, shaking her head, and his grin fades into suspicion and he looks at some point above her head and asks,

 

 

   “Are you okay? We need to get going, come on - Brienne called me,” and Shireen's vision stops swimming and her breathing levels out because of course Brienne would think of this, Brienne would think to trust Edric, because it doesn't matter that Shireen hasn't seen him in almost a year, not since the funeral where they both drank to excess and then laughed until they cried about how they've both lost a parent now who couldn't care less about leaving them or at least never indicated that they could before their untimely deaths, of course Brienne would think to ask Edric to do this, to rally in a time of crisis, sweet, sainted Brienne.

 

 

   “Oh, thank God,” she exclaims, flinging her arms around his neck and thumping him on the back with the helmet she had forgotten she was still holding, and he grunts at the impact and staggers for a second before he re-stabilises and then with firm but gentle hands detaches her and gives her a reassuring, bright, blue-eyed smile.

 

 

   “It's okay,” he tells her,

 

 

   “Now come on, we can just about make it.”

 

 

   “ _Thank_ you,” she says again in the split second before she can jam the helmet onto her head and get on behind him, and Edric wastes no time, but she remembers in the moment before they leave, now that her panic is dissipating at the hope that she may be in time to do everything that needs doing today, that Rickon Stark noticed before she did that she was falling apart, that he asked her if she was... something. Alright, maybe. That he looked like he cared even though he didn't have to.

 

 

   She only has time to quickly notice that he's still exactly where they left him before they hit the road and Shireen can't see him anymore, but she thinks that she should have said something.

 

 

   Thank you, maybe.

 

 

   -


	7. Stories That You Told Before - Taste What I'm Anxious For

 

 

 

   He gets in the door and instantly he is embroiled in whatever new nonsense is going on, Sansa and Arya arguing about something he already knows he isn't interested in, his mother's voice calling from the kitchen where pots are being banged about, and somewhere he can hear Robb laughing, and Rickon turns on his heel to escape, but immediately he's got a sister attached to each arm and they're both talking at the same time, half to him and half to each other, rapid-fire and ridiculous and setting his teeth on edge because they're too close and too loud and too much and he can't right now -

 

 

   “ - _no_ , we have _always_ had it with bacon, Sansa, isn't that right?”

 

 

   “ _No_ , we haven't - Rickon, you know Mum's carbonara sauce, that's not supposed to have bacon in it, is it?”

 

 

   “Yes it is - that's what carbonara _is_ , Sansa - _tell_ her, Rickon - ”

 

 

   “Leave me _alone!_ ” Rickon howls, shaking them both off and pushing past them, tearing through the house and ignoring the way Gendry has to jump back into the kitchen to avoid being run over and ignoring the way Robb yells at him sharply to _get the fuck back downstairs you little shit_ , and when he gets to his room he slams and locks the door and just slides down it, hands over his ears and eyes tightly shut against the way Sansa flinched and Arya wouldn't let go but dug her fingers in to keep him there, and he just can't, he can't, he can't.

 

 

   Under his feet they're all moving around and talking and nothing is really wrong, things are going so well, and he is not part of that, he is not part of the silly discussions, he is not part of the clattering of plates so that Catelyn Stark can feed the five thousand, the family she's collected over the years, a child for every day of the week and then some, blood and not, Rickon is not a part of it, doesn't want to be, doesn't want to _be_ here, and he doesn't know how long he sits there but he does know when dinnertime is both by the time and the smell wafting through the house and the gentle tapping of fingertips on the wood behind his back.

 

 

   When he opens his door, Sansa is looking at him like she's going to apologise and he has to shake his head because there aren't words for how little she needs to apologise for taking up space, and he doesn't have them to give her anyway, but her hands sort of flutter like she wants to touch him and she's not sure she's allowed to, and she looks uncertain when she mumbles,

 

 

   “Um, it, dinner's ready? Are you coming down? Robb wants to see you...”

 

 

   “I'm sorry,” he forces out before she's entirely done, and it gets him a little smile, a little shrug, and she rests her hand lightly on his arm.

 

 

   “It's fine,” she tells him, too serious behind her tentative gesture and the overly-gentle curve of her lips, and Rickon wants to shake her and tell her to stop treating him like a child, like she's afraid if she makes a wrong move he'll combust, but he has no right to because she's not wrong and it's not her fault she's so much more careful these days, that they haven't really talked about everything that's happened because she is too fragile and he is too enraged still, so instead they just skirt each other and she can't seem to find the balance between being his sister and what he's done for her.

 

 

   “Please come down?” she asks him, and her hand moves to his hand, and he remembers all the times their mother told her _Sansa take the baby_ even long after he was no longer any such thing, and his fingers curl around hers.

 

 

   She doesn't have to pull him along but it helps that she's holding on to him so that he'd have to upset and disappoint and leave her to run away, it makes it easier not to, but when they get to the landing they can hear their parents, they can hear Robb, and Arya -

 

 

   “ - hoped it would help but he's not getting any better.”

 

 

   “What would it _help_? You know he resents going, it's not like Bolton didn't have it coming - ”

 

 

   “That's as may be, but your brother still broke the law and this is the consequence, and he'll just have to accept that.”

 

 

   “I don't know why you all pussyfoot around him like this, he's not a child anymore - ”

 

 

   “Robb! You know it's hard for him - ”

 

 

   Sansa's grip on his hand gets firmer and she shoots him a worried look, but Rickon doesn't react.

 

 

   He is so used to being discussed like this that right now he is all but numb to it, he doesn't have the energy to react when this is the exact same conversation he's been overhearing for months, been partially roped into when they've realised he's overheard them or instead had to watch them scramble to pretend that they weren't just lamenting the fact that the youngest member of their family is out of control and needs help.

 

 

   Like it isn't too late for that.

 

 

   “Shh, they're coming,” he hears his mother hiss, and beside him Sansa clutches his hand and hugs his arm like it makes her sad, but it's not sad. It's dull and it's infuriating, but it is not sad.

 

 

   “There you are,” Robb says crossly as they descend the final few steps to where he is stood in the throng of Arya and Catelyn and Ned with Gendry hovering nervously in the background just beyond the entrance to the dining room,

 

 

   “Sansa shouldn't have to get you, Rickon, you know when dinner is - and you haven't even taken your boots off, what - ”

 

 

   “Leave it, Robb!” their mother snaps, then turns a somewhat nervous smile on Rickon and coos,

 

 

   “I'm just glad you're all home for dinner for once,” and behind her Arya mutters sullenly,

 

 

   “Jon's not here,” and Catelyn's smile sort of freezes and Sansa shrinks into Rickon's side a little, no doubt anticipating the imminent altercation, but Ned clears his throat loudly and says firmly,

 

 

   “And he and Ygritte are sorely missed, and so is Bran, but some of us have been at work all day and want to have dinner, so shall we?” and everyone drizzles into the dining room on a cloud of poorly suppressed irritation and anxiety and finds their seats.

 

 

   Rickon doesn't respond when his mother asks him how much pasta he'd like, just lets Sansa reach his plate in and heap it for him and put it in front of him and then sit down next to him like he needs supervision, and then Ned asks Robb why his latest girlfriend isn't with them tonight, and Robb starts some long story about why that is, and Catelyn addresses the room to ask how the food is even though not everyone has even been served yet and painfully polite Gendry tells her _it's wonderful Mrs. Stark, really,_ and Rickon stops giving even a shadow of a shit.

 

 

   The usual who's-with-whom-doing-what-these-days chatter of the familial dinner table conversation is never soothing to Rickon but today it grates along his every nerve, all these people and names and places and matters which don't concern him and he doesn't care about and can never remember the intricacies of anyway when it's brought up later by his parents and siblings who for some reason always expect him to know what they're on about, so he stares at the edge of his plate fixedly and eats like it's a chore and ignores them all.

 

 

   He doesn't have time to be angry about his family and the way he is so obviously inconvenient to them, because he's too busy being angry with himself.

 

 

   He doesn't even know what the fuck he was expecting, even though he does, really, he knew, he didn't actually _know_ , but he knew that Miss Shireen Baratheon is a queen among women and that obviously he can't be the only poor bastard in the world to have noticed that. Rickon may have revised his initial opinion of her drastically after their little encounter but frankly that opinion was a bunch of arse anyway, he was being a complete idiot at the time, she was so right about that, but he's known ever since that she is remarkable.

 

 

   A week ago he wouldn't have been overly surprised to be told that she's engaged to someone with an actual career and a five-year plan and a foot on the property market ladder and all the rest of that bollocks because she is that sort of woman, she so clearly is the sort of classy, elegant young lady who gets to live the modern fairytale and marry someone driven and responsible and mature with a family background that is equal to her own in some beautiful off-white-themed _Country Living_ feature ceremony and then go on to 'have it all' the way they're always talking about on television.

 

 

   Rickon already knew she was the kind of woman where you don't even have to look for the engagement ring but if there isn't one you have to assume it's just being resized or some shit, because it's so obvious there has to be one, or as close as damn it, and it was so bloody _stupid_ of him to ignore that just because all he's seen is that little filigree band that turned out to be as unexpectedly sharp as she did herself, he shouldn't have thought there was even the _slightest_ possibility that she doesn't have some very significant other tucked away somewhere, he shouldn't have _hoped_...

 

 

   It's just that whenever he's actually let himself dwell on it as an unconfirmed probability, as a _concept_ , he always imagined some faceless suit-wearing entity on a phone with carefully combed-back hair sensibly cut, someone anonymous and bland who belongs in the world she's dressed for when she comes to those bloody meetings, the kind of person who would send a car for her rather than pick her up himself, the kind of man whose entire life is as controlled and exacting and professional as she is, someone who wouldn't _dream_ of disturbing her hair when he kisses her, not even _accidentally_.

 

 

   Rickon wasn't expecting some knight-in-shining-leathers to appear out of bloody _nowhere_ , some university-rowing-team-captain type who looks like what would happen if you combined Jon and Robb and then gave the end result the _Town & Country_ treatment, like page one hundred and twenty of a modern-day Disney-Prince-for-grown-ups editorial shot by _Vogue_ where the overly-chiselled and -groomed model cast in the role as Mr. Charming Esq. magically shows up right before the princess' panic over the board meeting she's dressed for so carefully leads to her makeup getting smudged, except Rickon doesn't think Shireen really wears makeup or at least not noticeably and whatever she was upset about was real and raw and not at all photogenic even if she was just as lovely as ever even despite the hyperventilating.

 

 

   Rickon is angry because he was not expecting to come face to face with proof that someone like Shireen could actually be interested in someone _like_ Rickon, just a version that is older and respectable-looking and infinitely more polished and sophisticated and has probably actually had a haircut in recent memory which is why their hair is not a windswept confusion of curls but somehow artfully arranged even fresh out of a helmet as if to say maybe he is born with it but more likely it's just the result of having an actual grooming regimen like an adult that involves shit like hairbrushes and probably also some kind of product, and Rickon is angry with himself for being angry about it at all because he has no fucking grounds to be resentful or to feel cheated or slighted or any-other-fucking-thing in this, it's ridiculous, there is no reason at all for him to hate and feel like an underdeveloped discount version of -

 

 

   “ - Edric - ”

 

 

   _That's_ it, fucking _Edric_ , he thinks, with a wordless snarl into his plate, even the name is just a grown-up GQ-version of Rickon, and -

 

 

   _Hold it._

 

 

   “ - I haven't heard from him since Robert died, so I don't really know what to make of it,” Gendry finishes saying, and Rickon focuses in on him completely.

 

 

   “But that's all finished now, isn't it?” Arya is asking through a half-chewed mouthful of pasta,

 

 

   “All that inheritance bollocks? You didn't get anything - I mean, not that it matters, but the old bastard didn't leave you anything at all.”

 

 

   “He didn't leave me anything because I _am_ a bastard,” Gendry points out, although his eyes flicker to Catelyn and Ned briefly,

 

 

   “He never acknowledged me. I only know he was my dad because mum told me and she was sure, but he never wanted to know.”

 

 

   “So? He acknowledged that _Edric Storm_ prick, he's a bastard too,” Arya bristles with offence over this deliberate passing over of Gendry, who just shrugs.

 

 

   “I think he had to - something about Edric's mum being Robert's brother's wife's cousin? So, like, my mum was just a barmaid, he could get out of that as long as she didn't make a fuss, but he couldn't exactly walk away from - ”

 

 

   “Screwing your uncle's wife's cousin,” Arya says bluntly, and Gendry winces and shoots another glance towards Ned and Catelyn, whose mouth is twisted in distaste.

 

 

   “He's not _really_ my uncle,” Gendry mumbles, looking into his plate,

 

 

   “I've never met him. I've never met any of them. I only know Edric because he looked into how many of us there might be when Robert died and Edric thought we should be told in case we were mentioned in the will.”

 

 

   “And you weren't, because ironically, even though he fathered like a million bastards, Robert Baratheon was the biggest bastard in the world in everything but blood!” Arya says bitterly, and Gendry shrugs again, clearly very uncomfortable, and from the end of the table Catelyn mutters into her wineglass,

 

 

   “I am so glad your sister never married that man,” bringing a wounded, harangued look to her husband's face.

 

 

   “What's that?” Sansa asks, leaning in to look past Rickon at their mother, who Rickon can see in his peripheral vision waves her wineglass expressively and admits like it pains her,

 

 

   “Oh, when your aunt Lyanna was young, there was a time Robert Baratheon paid her a lot of attention and I know your grandparents thought it was a good family to marry into, but thankfully your aunt had no time for him. The man was a notorious philanderer even then - to think, he could have been your uncle!”

 

 

   “That never would have happened, Cat,” Ned rumbles, sounding chagrined at the topic and reproachful that his wife is speculating on the past, but all Rickon's mother does is huff into her wine and mutter,

 

 

   “Well thank God it didn't, that's all I'm saying! He and that vile Lannister woman deserved each other!”

 

 

   Rickon's hand is so tightly wrapped around his fork that it is actually numb now, and the tines slip along the porcelain with a slight screech before he can regain control, because he is not fucking interested in any of this, they are straying from the topic, Rickon already knows all about what a waste of space Robert Baratheon was, he wasn't lying when he told Shireen that his parents were discussing that earlier in the week, that mention was made of Robert because Ned used to do business with the old sot who was Gendry's biological father in life and in death was apparently swiftly joined by his brother's wife, and Rickon's parents were discussing what all that might mean for the family-owned shipping company, and then Rickon's mother had made vague mention of how sad it was that the daughter was now motherless, _that scarred girl, Ned, what's her name,_ and Rickon had made the connection.

 

 

   “Urgh, _mum_ , who cares,” Arya groans, and then prods Gendry with her fork, demanding,

 

 

   “So why _is_ Mr. Acknowledged Bastard Twenty-sixteen suddenly so interested in you again? What did he want?”

 

 

   “I don't know, really, something about how me and the others should get a heads-up that his cousin - _our_ cousin, I suppose - is doing something with the company and inheritance and things, so Robert's will might be contested, because he said he wasn't sure the family would think to reach out, I mean, they didn't when Robert died, so,” Gendry outlines like he's not really sure what it all means, but Rickon hears only the word ' _cousin_ '.

 

 

   If Robert Baratheon is Gendry's biological father, but never acknowledged him because he was born out of wedlock, and this _Edric_ is a bastard he _did_ acknowledge, that means that Edric and Gendry are half-brothers.

 

 

   If Robert Baratheon is Shireen Baratheon's uncle, that means that she and Gendry and Edric are cousins.

 

 

   ...and if Robert Baratheon only acknowledged this Edric out of a sense of obligation because he's the result of Robert shagging his brother's wife's cousin...

 

 

   He might be related to Shireen on both sides, if her dad is that brother.

 

 

   If that's the case, she'd know about it.

 

 

   Rickon's grip on his fork slowly relaxes.

 

 

   “Mum,” he says, apparently loudly enough for all dinner conversation to grind to a standstill, or perhaps that's just because the last time Rickon addressed anyone during a communal meal it led to the destruction of heirloom china, and his mother looks at him with wide eyes and mouths her response a few times before she actually articulates in slightly tremulous tones,

 

 

   “What is it, baby?”

 

 

   “Dinner's brilliant,” he tells her with a bright grin, shoving a forkful of pasta past it and relishing the shocked expressions of everyone at the table except Sansa, whose hand finds its way to his elbow in silent support as he devotes himself with ruthless focus to clearing his plate.

 

 

   Fuck the _Edric Storm_ prick, he thinks, echoing Arya's excellent sentiment of earlier, now at least Rickon knows he has one thing in common with Shireen.

 

 

   Awful fucking families.

 

 

   -


	8. I'm Gonna Save Myself First

 

 

 

   She's late.

 

 

   Striding in exactly on the dot, head to toe black, no cream contrast, inclining her head in apology to EB who is already seated even though he likes to be last to sit, taking the last available chair that is not the one directly opposite Rickon's - this is late, for her, and it makes him frown and watch her more closely, but she's not breathing hard, hasn't been running, she looks calm, she looks in control.

 

 

   “Oh good, now that we're all here, who would like to begin?” EB asks mildly, and Rickon sees the slightest pinch of her mouth, that she isn't happy being the last one in, she isn't happy to have it acknowledged, she isn't happy being observed as she settles regally in her chair.

 

 

   “I actually spoke to my family at dinner last week,” he finds himself saying, and Shireen's frown of discomfort turns to confusion and then irons out again smoothly, as she tilts her head slightly and looks at him like she's got his number, like she can tell what he's up to, but the stunned look on EB's face and the widened eyes of a few of the others that he's finally said something after weeks of sullen silence - while amusing - is nowhere near as gratifying as the way Shireen Baratheon crosses her ankles and straightens her lovely neck and quirks a tiny smile right at him.

 

 

   “Really? And how does that usually go?” EB asks, thinly veiled eagerness under the calm encouragement, and Rickon shrugs loosely and smirks.

 

 

   “Badly,” he states.

 

 

   EB leans forward in his seat and makes a ' _please continue_ ' gesture with one hand, but that's not what Rickon is here for, so he just raises his eyebrows and says,

 

 

   “That's it. I'm done.”

 

 

   Shireen's little smile turns into arch coolness, and EB leans back again in defeat and utters some kind of platitude about how ' _that's still progress, well done Rickon_ ', and then things move swiftly on, but Rickon permits himself a slight nod at Shireen, who merely keeps her eyes steady on him for a moment and then turns her attention to the person who is now speaking.

 

 

   She knows, though, so it's enough. It's worth it.

 

 

   He doesn't speak again, because he doesn't have to, but she doesn't speak at all, just sits there and looks calm and professional and contained and lovely, and just observing her is somehow soothing to him. Rickon is certain that this is not what the authorities meant to happen when they felt it prudent to sentence him to attending anger management in this manner - they likely did not foresee the effects of Shireen Baratheon's mere presence on the wrath in Rickon's heart, but the effects are there nonetheless and they are quite miraculous.

 

 

   By the end of the session he feels lighter, oddly full and contented, and perhaps it's a good thing that she dispenses her good will in the tiniest of doses because if so small a thing as earning a three-second half-smile can leave him with a sense of accomplishment, he probably is not equal to anything more than that yet.

 

 

   He doesn't actually try and engineer it so that they can walk out together - that would be creepy - it's just that he likes to leave the second it's permissible and she is clearly a very busy person with a lot of things to see to, and so she tends to also leave as soon as things wrap up, there's no dithering, so if things just work out that way -

 

 

   “Rickon! May I have a moment?” EB cuts into Rickon's timely escape before he can outpace him, and he turns sharply on his heel and crosses his arms to make it more than clear that he wants to be gone already, he does not have time to stand around here, fuck him he knew there'd be consequences to actually speaking up -

 

 

   “What?” he asks, ungraciously, and to EB's credit his expression remains calm - hell he was probably ready for Rickon to kick off about this - and Rickon feels vaguely sick for a moment that he's thinking of this person in such familiar terms because when the fuck did _that_ happen, but of course, that's how Shireen referred to him, and that somehow makes it less nauseating.

 

 

   “I just wanted to say I'm pleased to see you're finally engaging - I didn't want to pressure you before, but I was getting concerned that you just weren't open to what we try and do here,” EB says, taking precious seconds out of Rickon's day like they belong to him,

 

 

   “But today was a good effort. I'm proud of you - we'll get there in the end.”

 

 

   _I didn't do it for you - I'm not here for me - the only place I want to go is out of here for a flash of her hair in the sun -_

 

 

   “Thanks,” he responds, both as firmly as he feels he can get away with to indicate that he has somewhere else to be, and as noncommittally as possible because if there's one thing he wants to avoid it's establishing any kind of expectations here, and EB just smiles at him and wishes him a pleasant weekend and Rickon grins more with the prospect of freedom than in answer, and legs it.

 

 

   Outside the sun breaks upon his face like a reflection off her ring as she stands hand on the door of that car he's seen her arrive in and be collected in but today there's only her so she must have driven herself - there's only her, talking to a woman standing a few steps in front of her and clearly belonging to the very similar car parked like it just drove up, some youth sitting in the driver's seat and staring straight ahead like he's trying very hard not to be part of whatever-the-fuck's going on here.

 

 

   Rickon hefts his helmet in his hand, fingers curved into the rim and strap around his wrist, and walks over rather more slowly than he needs to, ostensibly in the direction of his bike, but it's parked quite near Shireen's car anyway, and the way she is standing - like she was ambushed from behind - is _wrong_ , he thinks, as is the red of the other woman's hair.

 

 

   Rickon knows red hair. The vast majority of his family has natural red tones to their hair, him included.

 

 

   This colour is definitely not natural, it jars the eye, and the bright white swath of cleavage it frames isn't enough to make up for it, or for the way her dress is clearly chosen to complement that unnatural red, or the odd, stiffly placid expression on her face, like she's only just managing to gloss over open condescension.

 

 

   “ - father is so worried, Shireen, and of course I can see why, now. We had no idea you had resorted to this - consorting with criminals?” the woman is saying, a sickly patronising tone under overdone concern, supercilious and vile and as obvious as the fact that she's clearly not as young as she is trying to make out, flicking a quick glance Rickon's way, and he comes to a halt a little behind Shireen, standing his ground which makes this woman narrow her eyes just briefly and then turn her attention back to Shireen, her tone the same when she goes on,

 

 

   “I know this has been a difficult time for you, but you could have reached out to us.”

 

 

   “How did you know I was here?” Shireen asks, and everything about it just makes Rickon's skin crawl, Shireen sounds so tightly wound and so icy and the way this red woman keeps looking at her with that artificial little concern-pout like Shireen is a stumbling recalcitrant child who needs to be brought back in line before she has an accident...

 

 

   “Oh, your father had GPS tracking installed in all the cars,” the red woman says mildly, like this is something Shireen should have known, like it was done for Shireen's benefit somehow and she'd see that if only she weren't such a silly little girl who needs handling by adults who know so much better than she does what's best, and Rickon can see how still Shireen is, but her voice is even and emotionless when she says,

 

 

   “I see.”

 

 

   The red woman tilts her head at her as if she is scrutinising Shireen's face and choosing to do so from the angle that best reveals her scars, which strikes Rickon as an incredibly repulsive thing to do purposely, and then she almost coos, her words thick with cloyingly false caring but layered over a truly disturbing edge of triumph,

 

 

   “You were always so much like your mother, Shireen. I was truly sorry that we were too late to give her the help she needed, but it's not too late for you. The lord of light could do so much for you, if only you'd open yourself to be helped. You will think about it, won't you?”

 

 

   As a parting shot, she reaches in and touches Shireen's face, cupping her chin and smiling at her with dead eyes, and Rickon thinks about grabbing a fistful of fake red hair and just ripping until something gives, scalp or neck, whatever goes first is fine by him -

 

 

   “Take care, Shireen,” the red woman says almost gleefully, releasing Shireen and moving back a little, adding airily,

 

 

   “You must come and visit us soon - your father would so like to see you,” and then she turns and wiggle-walks back to her car where the immobile youth still sits staring straight ahead and awaiting orders on where to take this heinous bitch next, and Rickon sees Shireen start forward, sees her hands rise, and he just knows what she's going to do, because it's the same impulse he had and he can't let that happen so he lunges for her and grabs both her arms above the elbow, and for a wild second they struggle silently as he prays _no, no, no, no, no_ under his breath because she can't, she can't - and then Shireen goes still under his hands and he releases her and moves away just as the red woman opens her car door and slides into the back.

 

 

   Shireen is completely unmoving as the red woman mutters some direction or other to the lad driving her and then turns her face to give Shireen a little wave, and Rickon can feel his heart pounding, terrified that he's standing close enough to Shireen now to give the game away, but the red woman doesn't spare him a glance, and her car takes off and disappears with a purr of well-kept engine and they are alone, he and Shireen, and she rounds on him with murder in her eyes.

 

 

   “You,” she hisses, and it makes him take a faltering step back there is so much venom there, her hands clawed like she plans to scratch his eyes out,

 

 

   “ _You -_ ”

 

 

   It seems to be the only thing she can get past her teeth, and she advances on him as he continues to back up, hands out defensively, helmet strap caught around his elbow as he tries to make her see,

 

 

   “I couldn't let you do it - I don't know who that bitch was but I couldn't let you - ”

 

 

   “ _Let_ me - ” Shireen shrieks, strangled, and he can feel his shin bang into the side of Jon's bike and there's nowhere left to go,

 

 

   “ _Let_ me - she _deserves_ it - _how **dare** you -_ ”

 

 

   She's going to hit him and she's too angry to hold back and she's too angry to use the same finesse she did last time she struck him because that was a calculated risk and this rage is blind and brutal and he doesn't want to fight back but he knows that she's going to regret this, she'll be upset once it's over, so when she lashes out he just turns aside and holds up his hands to block her, and there's a sort of hollow crack and he's jarred but he doesn't feel an actual impact and she makes a high, thin sort of sound and huddles in over herself clutching her hand and he lowers his own hands by his sides and his helmet slips down his forearm by the strap and then falls onto the gravel by his boot and he thinks _oh **shit** -_

 

 

   Shireen screams.

 

 

   -


	9. Gotta Act Like Nothing Happened - Watch What You Say

 

 

 

   She cuts herself off almost immediately with a strained sort of gasp, and then she straightens a little, cradling her hand to her chest, and swallows, licking her lips and saying,

 

 

   “I think I broke my hand,” and then she looks up at him like she's utterly bewildered by it, and bursts into tears.

 

 

   She shakes her head as they tumble over her cheeks and don't stop however hard she squeezes her eyes shut against them, her lashes can't trap them before they fall, and she heaves wracking little sobs as though she can't breathe, her shoulders shaking violently with every one, and Rickon thinks, _I should have let her murder the bitch,_ and, _I should have let her hit me,_ and, _this is all wrong, what are you **doing** ,_ because he's just **_watching_** her cry.

 

 

   Well, _fuck_ that.

 

 

   “Shireen,” he says quietly, calmly, careful but firm,

 

 

   “Give me your hand,” and it's not difficult to extricate it from where she is holding it to her because she is clearly not in a frame of mind conducive to resisting and the limb is too fragile for her to snatch back for fear of hurting herself further, and Rickon hates that he is handling her without her true and express consent, but he has to because she wouldn't have broken a damn thing if she'd actually hit _him_ except maybe his face and frankly Rickon feels that there are more delicate things to do lasting damage to in her hand and so if she hasn't the resources to assess to what degree he should be hating himself he bloody well will.

 

 

   If it is a break, it's not open, but he'd put money on her having at least fractured her last two knuckles, her little and ring finger already blueing under the band of swelling pink where she clearly struck his helmet in error because she was literally too enraged to see straight, and he swallows down the guilt and says steadily,

 

 

   “You need to get this x-rayed.”

 

 

   “I can't,” she sobs painfully, and because he is holding her wrist gently he can feel how badly she's shaking,

 

 

   “She - she's been _watching_ me - she's been tracking my - oh, _god_ , she'll know I went to Renly - ”

 

 

   Rickon has no idea what she's talking about, but the way her voice breaks is the only convincing he needs that whoever that red woman was, she is evil, because Shireen sounds terrified.

 

 

   “Shireen - you can't drive like this,” he tells her, because she really can't, and she covers her face with her uninjured hand and shakes her head again, breathing too quickly and too shallowly.

 

 

   “No - no, I can't - I'll have to leave the car here, I can't - _what about my phone_ ,” she removes her hand and looks struck by fresh horror,

 

 

   “She would - that's exactly the sort of - it's my company phone, how could I be so stupid, I take it everywhere - ”

 

 

   She's sort of staring through him in a kind of wild panic as she whispers with increasing fear of all these dreadful things this red woman is apparently more than capable of having done, and Rickon puts his free hand on her shoulder and grips it hard for a moment, watching her focus on him properly and frown, and then he says,

 

 

   “Shireen. Is there someone you can call about this? That blonde woman who drives you? Anyone?”

 

 

   “Brienne,” Shireen mumbles, more tears falling from their queue on her lash-line,

 

 

   “I need Brienne.”

 

 

   “You need to go to a hospital,” Rickon insists, hoping she won't argue, because that has to be the priority, but she immediately cries,

 

 

   “No! She'll know - ”

 

 

   “You're going to turn off your personal and company phones, on the off chance that red bitch tampered with them. You're going to borrow my phone, call this Brienne, and tell her I'm taking you to a hospital because your car's being tracked. You're going to put on my helmet and get on my bike and we're going to get your hand sorted out, and then your friend or someone else you trust can come and get you from the hospital, Shireen,” Rickon decides, and she stares at him blankly, and he realises he's still got her wrist in his hand and his other remains on her shoulder and she is so small and delicate and looking up at him like she's never seen him before, and then she frowns and turns her face a little as if it's suddenly occurred to her to be self-conscious of her scars, but her expression says she is weighing her options, that she is trying to find a better way.

 

 

   “You'd help?” she asks finally, facing him full on and now with an almost challenging gaze, and he nods once and swallows.

 

 

   “You're hurt and I feel guilty and I don't know what that woman's doing to you or why, but I know it's wrong. I want to help, Shireen,” he mumbles earnestly, suddenly feeling that it's wrong for him to be looking down on her like this, like it should be the other way around, and her eyes close as she takes a deep breath, and nods slightly, and then she looks up at him again and very, very softly says,

 

 

   “Thank you.”

 

 

   “You don't need to thank me,” he says seriously, letting his hands drop away from her and pulling out his phone, unlocking and giving it to her,

 

 

   “Call your friend.”

 

 

   He can see the caution still there under the tears she still hasn't wiped away because they're not a weakness in themselves, and the way she squares her shoulders and steels herself and takes a step back to type in a number she clearly knows in her head is like watching her put on armour, but she doesn't falter.

 

 

   She rests her injured hand against her chest again and waits for Brienne to pick up.

 

 

   “She was here,” Shireen says as soon as she's through, not wasting any time,

 

 

   “She was here and she knew I would be because all the cars are tracked, she told me - no, I don't know about the phones, I've borrowed one.”

 

 

   Rickon watches the way she keeps her eyes on the ground, the way she is so intently focused now that there is a plan, and he wonders whether her tears were for the pain and shock of being unexpectedly hurt or the fact that it sounds as though the red woman has laid all Shireen's previous plans to waste, exposed Shireen and possibly others to whatever they've clearly been working to avoid.

 

 

   Rickon wonders how much is at stake here exactly, and why it looks to him like Shireen is fighting whatever war this is on her own, against her own father, if that bloody red woman is to be believed.

 

 

   “I know - no, I can't - Brienne, I have to go to the hospital, I think I've broken my hand. It was an accident,” Shireen is saying quietly, a strangely edgeless urgency in her voice, as though the adrenaline is leaving her to deal with the chemical fallout and it's sapping her last reserves,

 

 

   “Yes. I'll call you from the hospital. Yes, I know. I'll be careful. You - alright...” she looks up at Rickon and proffers the phone, tells him,

 

 

   “She wants to tell you something,” and Rickon will take anything in the world she chooses to give him, so accepting his own phone back is nothing in the grand scheme of things, nor does he find it strange that Shireen's friend whom she trusts with all of this wants to speak to the person who is currently standing in for her out of necessity, so he puts the phone to his ear, but apparently the time for introductions will come later because this Brienne does not bother with them. She just says in a very clear, hard voice,

 

 

   _“Stark. If anything happens to Miss Shireen while she's in your care, I will break you over my knee. You keep her safe, do you understand? And be discreet.”_

 

 

   “I will,” he swears, not offended in the slightest, not surprised that Shireen has somehow made it clear to Brienne who he is, actually glad that someone seems to be taking Shireen's safety seriously,

 

 

   “I promise.”

 

 

   “ _Good_ ,” Brienne says, and hangs up, and Rickon puts his phone away and looks at Shireen, who is watching him with clouded, concerned eyes, tight at the edges just like her mouth is, pain and worry visible but held in check.

 

 

   “Can you hang on like that?” he asks, fretting because it occurs to him that her hand is all but useless right now, the way she's holding it close to her is enough of an indication of that, and if she somehow manages to fall off his bike on the way to the hospital -

 

 

   “I can do whatever needs doing, Rickon Stark,” she says steadily, bending gracefully at the knees to retrieve the helmet he dropped by his feet when she got hurt, and when she rises he sees nothing but determination in her eyes.

 

 

   Her cheeks are still wet.

 

 

   “I believe you,” he tells her simply, because he does, truly, and her gaze sharpens and then she puts the helmet under her bad arm and asks him like they're at a cafe and she intends to pay the check,

 

 

   “Could you hold my bag, please?” and he complies as she slides it off her shoulder and then pulls out and turns off and then replaces two identical black phones, securing the clasp on the bag and letting him hold it for her while she puts on his helmet, then lengthens the straps of the bag which appear to be adjustable with the aid of little buckle-snaps, and takes the bag back to loop the straps over her head and shoulder so it hangs across her torso, and then rests the elbow of her injured arm in the sling-like cradle where straps meet the body of the bag, and looks at him with calm deep blue eyes.

 

 

   “I'm ready,” she declares, using her good hand to push down the visor, and even though her voice is slightly muffled and she is so very small and delicate looking still, Rickon feels that he might as well be looking at a queen who has just announced that she is now ready to lead her troops into battle from the frontline personally since apparently no one else knows what the hell they're doing.

 

 

   Rickon is definitely one of those people. All he knows with certainty is that he'll do whatever she asks of him.

 

 

   She knows what she's doing and that's enough.

 

 

   -


	10. Showing Up Because I've Got Nothing To Lose

 

 

 

   Shireen certainly knows what she's doing when she positions herself behind him on Jon's bike and places one arm around his waist, that much is clear, and Rickon is not at all jealous of whoever she's ridden with in the past to be this good at keeping her seat and leaning through turns with him - although if that list begins and ends with her actual bastard cousin that would be splendid - but he is skirting a difficult edge between resentment that this is happening like _this_ so he can't in good conscience enjoy the fact that she's riding with him and a gnawing and pervasive fear that even though he's being careful for her sake - and to avoid attracting attention - she'll fall off and die or they'll be pulled over and it'll become public knowledge that Shireen Baratheon hitched a ride to a hospital with an uninsured underage rider of a motorbike that is actually registered under the name Jon Snow.

 

 

   This is why he feels awkwardly relieved to actually park at said hospital safe and sound and to have her slide off and straighten her blazer in a businesslike fashion, removing the helmet and smoothing down her hair which is minimally disarrayed, the only sign of any discomfort the tightness around her eyes and the determined set of her mouth.

 

 

   It's still obvious that she has recently been crying, but he doesn't see any evidence that she shed fresh tears on the way here, for which he is grateful because knowing that she had would have made the guilt unbearable. She hands him the helmet and he just sets it next to the bike and then they sort of just watch each other for a moment until she nods a little and asks,

 

 

   “May I borrow your phone again? I need to tell Brienne where I am. She'll be worried.”

 

 

   “Of course,” he replies, fishing it out and unlocking it to place in her outstretched hand immediately, just glad to have something to do, because she is so quiet, she only ever speaks when it's necessary, and usually that would be just another trait which proves her perfection in his eyes, but right now he feels angry and hunted and concerned and most of that is all for her and everything she seems to be fighting right now, and her stillness and control are not so much unnerving as they are just a highlight of how poorly he is coping with all this when he isn't even the one directly affected and how by contrast she is handling this as if it's all just another day, and if this is what her days are like, he thinks she's unbelievable for being able to face them at all.

 

 

   “Thank you,” she tells him, again dialling Brienne's number by rote instead of just going to get it from the recent calls menu, and Rickon doesn't know what kind of hellfire this flower-stem girl was forged in, but every moment spent observing her is a trial and he knows he won't be found worthy.

 

 

   He can't imagine anyone who would be, at this point, and increasingly he thinks that if she just needs someone to hold her purse when she's a hand down and make sure she can get from A to B as and whenever she needs to, and fetch her things while she gets on with tasks, he'd do all of that gladly and never ask for anything because having seen a glimpse of what she has to deal with he could never ask her for anything. It wouldn't be right.

 

 

   “You're welcome,” he mumbles, and it's awkward because she is, welcome to everything he has and everything he is. He doesn't think she'd ever even consider taking advantage of that even if he told her, and that's just another reason to admire her beyond words.

 

 

   “Brienne? I'm at the hospital - yes, but don't worry about dropping everything, you know how long this sort of thing takes. Yes, I'll be fine. I can wait on my own - ”

 

 

   He's not watching her directly while she has her conversation because although the temptation to just soak up her presence is strong and he'd like to just bask in the reflected glory of her competence and courage, that would be rude, and the very first thing she ever told him was not to gawk at her, so the least he can do is try not to even though it's hard when she's right here and she's so brilliant, but at the mention that she can just wait alone he can't help jerking his head up to look at her, protest already forming, but the look on her face indicates that Brienne is arguing his case for him, so he bites his tongue.

 

 

   “Brienne, I can't just - no, it wouldn't be - no, of course not, but I - ” Shireen is saying, sounding increasingly worn and exasperated, and Rickon hates that she looks so displeased and tired but surely, surely Brienne is telling her what Rickon is thinking, that Shireen should not wait for ages in a hospital to be treated on her own, that she should not let him leave until Brienne or someone else comes to get her and take her home because she is hurt and she has had a shock and it isn't _right_ -

 

 

   She looks at him with a nervous light in her eyes and licks her lip briefly, and he doesn't think he was supposed to see that, and then she asks him in weary tones,

 

 

   “Would you - ?”

 

 

   “Yes,” he says promptly, biting down hard on the 'anything' that should follow, and she closes her eyes for a moment and then opens them and hums a sound which is not for him, and tells Brienne,

 

 

   “He said yes. I think so - yes, alright. I'll let you know,” and then Brienne clearly ends the conversation because Shireen lowers the phone and then holds it out to him, and he darts a quick look at her blazer and notes that it does have pockets - because although Sansa has lamented repeatedly that most clothing for women does not have functional pockets Rickon cannot imagine Shireen Baratheon buying something with the dreaded faux-pockets, that seems utterly incongruous with what he knows of her, so he shakes his head hard and tells her,

 

 

   “Keep it. Hospital phones are terrible - you'll need to call Brienne again later.”

 

 

   She narrows her eyes at him for a second as if she's trying to ferret out what his motivation for doing this is, and then he can see the exhaustion take over and she slips his phone into her pocket - which is indeed functional, as he knew it must be for she is that kind of woman - and gives him a different sort of look, soft and fatigued but decided.

 

 

   “Thank you, Rickon,” she says, and he could honestly listen to that forever but at the same time he doesn't like that she's thanking him for being a decent human being, for offering her things that she should be able to just expect, it makes him feel like he's accepting things that aren't his, like he's taking from her when he shouldn't be and she can't spare it, so he smiles at her.

 

 

   “You don't have to thank me for helping you,” he insists, as sincerely and kindly as he can without dipping into the well of his admiration for everything she is, but she shakes her head at him, and he can see that the coil of her hair at the nape of her neck is coming loose in stages, and she says with a sort of sigh,

 

 

   “No; I really do. Thank you.”

 

 

   He has no defence for that, doesn't know what to do with it except follow her half-blindly when she turns and walks into the emergency room, and he sort of hovers a little too far away to hear what she's saying to the nurse manning the desk because he doesn't want to eavesdrop on things like her personal information, but in doing so he has to sidestep an older woman who is clearly annoyed that he isn't in fact queuing, and when he turns back to look at Shireen, the nurse is glaring at him and he's no match for that level of unwarranted disapproval in his current state of mind so he fades back against the wall and waits until Shireen's little black shoes suddenly peek at him from under the curtain of his curls where he's hanging his head, and he looks up at her and sees that she is watching him as if she is waiting for something.

 

 

   “I'm to wait until I'm called,” she tells him quietly, nothing to glean from it but the information given because she has settled into herself again, and he flashes her a smile that seems to surprise her, although she returns to neutrality quickly.

 

 

   “So we wait,” he says simply, because he'll be buggered if he leaves her alone here to brood over everything that's happened, and then it occurs to him,

 

 

   “I mean - you don't have to talk to me, I just - I told Brienne I wouldn't leave until she got here - ” which is mostly true, that's how he chooses to interpret their brief exchange anyway,

 

 

   “I just know hospitals are terrible and waiting rooms are terrible and hospital waiting rooms are the most terrible, and...”

 

 

   She's smiling at him.

 

 

   It isn't bright or wide, it's not amused, but she's smiling, and however weary or slight it is, it's still real, and he's not sure he deserves it.

 

 

   “I was going to say,” she begins, low and for no one else, meeting his gaze with a sort of calm resignation,

 

 

   “That I know Brienne would rather I not wait alone, but if you would rather leave, I wouldn't... I wouldn't hold it against you. You needn't stay. I don't even know how long it will take.”

 

 

   “But do you want me to go?” he asks her quietly, concerned, because he's not hearing an outright dismissal, it's more like she is clinging to her duty to consider that he might have things to do besides this, because of course she can't know that even if he had that wouldn't matter, and then he realises what that sounds like and shakes his head, cross with his own presumption,

 

 

   “I meant - would you rather be alone?”

 

 

   Her deep blue eyes widen as if she wasn't expecting her wishes to be part of the equation, and it's awful in its own way to behold, because spending time with her even sitting silently in a hospital waiting room is not a hardship to him, and it pains him that she'd believe otherwise and that her reaction to all this is surprise that what she wants is being weighted, because it means she isn't used to that, not even injured and frightened and fighting for others, she's not used to being put first.

 

 

   “I don't much like hospitals...” she murmurs, and though she has raised her battered hand to rest against her chest again, probably after showing the nurse, she now raises her other hand to her face in an absent sort of gesture, ghosting over her scars and her hair as if deciding against pulling her hair over them at the last moment, and he wonders if she knows she's doing it or if she knows that her eyes aren't seeing him anymore, and he wonders what she is seeing, if it's whatever caused those scars, and what that might be.

 

 

   “Me neither,” he admits easily, wanting her to come back from wherever she's gone,

 

 

   “They're alright here, though - they did a great job on my hands when I came in after my, uh...”

 

 

   She tilts her head and sees him again, glancing down at his hands, and then back to his face, a question poised on her lips like a kiss, and he shakes his head.

 

 

   “Anyway - this isn't the worst place. They're nice enough, the staff,” he rambles, as Shireen's questioning look deepens, and then he happens to look over her shoulder and notices,

 

 

   “Except for that nurse who looks like she'd be happy to murder me, but I don't know her. My brother knows one of the doctors here from university, though, he helped stitch me up last time I was here.”

 

 

   Shireen turns briefly to look at the nurse when he mentions her, and when she turns back she is frowning slightly, and Rickon doesn't know whether it's because she doesn't believe he hasn't wronged the woman somehow or because she doesn't approve of the unprofessional conduct that is the glaring at patients and the people with them for no apparent reason, but he thinks she would disapprove of something like that.

 

 

   “I suppose you need stitches quite often,” she says with a hint of humour, and he grins and shrugs and admits,

 

 

   “Not as often as you might think,” and gets another little half-smile for his efforts, and then that nurse is by Shireen's elbow and unobtrusively, kindly offering,

 

 

   “Miss Baratheon? I thought you might like something cold, for the swelling - take it down a bit before the x-ray so it won't interfere,” and Shireen takes the cold pack gratefully and murmurs her thanks, and then the nurse shoots Rickon an icy, haughty, quelling look that makes him feel all of five years old and like he's done something horribly wrong, and she directs a snappish,

 

 

   “Why don't you take a seat,” at him, which is in no way a suggestion, and then she gentles her tone again and says mostly to Shireen,

 

 

   “I just need to ask Miss Baratheon some questions,” and Shireen nods to the nurse and then looks up at Rickon and says,

 

 

   “You'll wait, won't you?” which makes the nurse's mouth tighten in distaste, and Rickon ignores her and nods at Shireen and promises,

 

 

   “I'll just be here,” and then watches the nurse take Shireen into one of the door-less side-rooms, murmuring to her and looking very serious.

 

 

   He sort of slides into the nearest empty seat making sure he's at the end of a mostly empty row, and thinks, idly, that it's possible his family is wondering why he isn't home yet, and then he can't help but think that Shireen doesn't even have that - parents who might be calling to see where she is because they expected her home already.

 

 

   Shireen has a father who apparently tracks her car, she has no mother, and somewhere in all that there is a woman who seems to know more about the activities of Shireen's father than Shireen does herself, and who holds that knowledge over her like a threat.

 

 

   Who can she even trust? No one has mentioned her having any siblings, he knows she's got more than one cousin but Gendry says he's never met her and Rickon can't imagine Shireen having anything to do with a Lannister, and she reacted to that Edric Storm character like he was the last person in the world she expected to see come to her rescue, so Rickon assumes she's not close with him either.

 

 

   She's got Brienne, who seems more like an employee stroke friend, and then she mentioned going to someone called Renly, that the red woman will know about that now, and the idea clearly distressed her, so Rickon assumes that is some kind of business partner Shireen wants to keep secret until the time is right...

 

 

   Gendry said they might be contesting Robert Baratheon's will, that Edric Storm called Gendry because if it's contested there's a chance the bastards might get something. If Shireen is working for that cause - and Rickon can't imagine she'd be working against it, even if she has no personal relationship with her uncle's bastards Rickon can't see her trying to cut them out if they might have a claim, she is not that sort of person - and the red woman, who seems to have her claws in Shireen's father, is working against it...

 

 

   She must be a mistress of some kind, or a new girlfriend, trying to make sure Shireen gets nothing and Robert's bastards get nothing if the will is contested, to leave more for Shireen's father to inherit and the red woman to leech off in the role as gold-digging slapper, which is clearly what she is regardless of whether Rickon's accurately grasped all the other details.

 

 

   That nasty bitch had cheap and greedy and ruthless written all over her from bad dye-job to inappropriate heels.

 

 

   But if she's got Shireen's father's ear, and all Shireen has is one friend and or co-worker, a mystery business partner, and the peripheral support of her cousins...

 

 

   That's an unfair fight.

 

 

   He's been watching the doorway she and the nurse went through with a frown ever since they passed out of sight, and then he sees her leave, alone, and glide steadily towards him, holding the cold pack to her injury and looking serene and more self-possessed than should be possible in a hospital waiting room and with potentially broken bones, and he sort of half rises before she shakes her head at him and then joins him to sit only one space between them, and she turns towards him and says in low tones,

 

 

   “Well, I know now why she doesn't like you - she thinks you did this.”

 

 

   “I sort of did,” he reminds her, but her calm evaporates in an instant and she leans into his personal space with a silent snarl, the movement loosening her hair even more on one side, so it slips forwards over her scars and she hisses,

 

 

   “You did no such thing - don't you dare try to take responsibility for my actions - for my mistakes, Rickon Stark, they do not belong to you, and I won't have it, is that clear?”

 

 

   “But - ” he utters, and it's more an automatic protest than because he has any real rejoinder, although he fully believes he's responsible, and she narrows her eyes and cuts across instantly,

 

 

   “Let me remind you that I would have _hurt_ you - you had every right to try and avoid that, and that is how this happened!”

 

 

   “I - ”

 

 

   “I might hate that you intervened when I was going for that vile bitch because frankly that wasn't your decision to make, but if you hadn't, I would have done things there would have been no coming back from because I was not in control, just as I was not in control when I lashed out at you, and now I am paying the price for not keeping a better hold on my emotions and for acting rashly - emotions and actions that _you_ are _not_ responsible for, so if you're going to keep trying to insist that you are, I'm going to have to ask you to leave, and possibly also to burn in hell!”

 

 

   “I'm sorry,” he tells her, shaken and helpless because even when she is wrung out and cornered and doubtlessly already working internally on strategies to solve the problems that have been heaped upon her today, she is still so cuttingly, mercilessly honest and straightforward about who she is and what she believes, and it's glorious, and so is she, wild-eyed and ferocious as she owns her mistakes and tells him outright she'll fight him for that ownership, and he has no doubt she'd win because she's stronger than he is, obviously, he doesn't know how he'd begin to resist,

 

 

   “I'm sorry for trying to take that away from you - I've no right to - and I'm sorry I interfered earlier, I was just afraid of what you'd do - you looked like you were going to murder her, Shireen, I honestly thought you might try, and there was a witness and I couldn't let you do it, I knew you'd regret it and I didn't want you to suffer later for not being able to keep in control for a second, it wouldn't have been right - ”

 

 

   She is leaning back a little bit now, the fierceness fading, and there is a perturbed set to her mouth as she watches him with darting, grave eyes, and he finishes lamely, pleading hoarse and low so no one else will hear in case it comes back to her,

 

 

   “I know I shouldn't have held you back, but I didn't think and then I'd already done it, and I understand if you won't forgive me because I know that look you had and I wouldn't have forgiven anyone who tried to hold me back last time _I_ had it, but I _do_ feel guilty for you getting hurt, I can't help that. I won't take responsibility for what you did, but you did it because I got in your way, and I understand that, and to me, that makes it my fault you're hurt. So I'm sorry.”

 

 

   She is staring into him like he's transparent, and he hopes he isn't or she'll see some things he is not sure either of them needs out in the open right now, but the confused, almost bewildered look in her eyes and her disbelieving frown are so close there's no escaping them, and he doesn't know what she's seeing but it's possibly something he'll have to admit to and he _will_ have to because he cannot lie to this woman -

 

 

   “You said,” she enunciates slowly, precisely, with care as if she is picking her way through something immensely complex,

 

 

   “You couldn't let me do it with a witness present. You mean her driver.”

 

 

   “Yes,” he replies honestly, and her frown deepens and the look on her face becomes almost appalled, and she tilts her head a little as if examining him even more intensely, as if the change in angle will add to the image, and then demands in a faint, scraping voice,

 

 

   “So if he hadn't been there... you'd have done nothing?”

 

 

   “... I don't know,” Rickon confesses, because in the moment, in the moment that's what he remembers thinking, not in front of someone, can't let her do it in front of someone, and she must see that, so she says with tremulous dismay,

 

 

   “But that _is_ what you said. And you meant it, you meant that you didn't consider yourself a witness.”

 

 

   “I don't...” he begins and then realises she's right, and he doesn't have to finish his sentence because there's no end to it, that's all there is to say.

 

 

   He didn't consider himself a potential witness to whatever Shireen was going to do to that awful red woman. He didn't consider himself in that light, because in the moment, he was so utterly on Shireen's side, that he didn't think of himself as someone whose testimony of events should it come to that would damage her.

 

 

   On some level, he had already decided to lie to protect her if it came to that. He only intervened so it wouldn't, to spare her that hassle, that added concern.

 

 

   So she wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of getting her hands dirty.

 

 

   “Rickon...” she breathes, and it is horror and it is incredulity and it is a dark and deepening uncertainty that mirrors what lurks in her eyes as she stares right into him and knows the truth.

 

 

   “Why..?” she utters, her gaze locked to his but she shakes her head slightly as she asks it, and it is more a thin gasp than it is a word, and he shrugs even though he knows, he knows too well, and so it is uncomfortable because even the stalling feels like a lie and he can't lie to Shireen, he won't -

 

 

   “You deserve better,” he confesses, and means it with all of him,

 

 

   “Whatever's happened to you - whatever's going on, all of this, that bloody woman - you deserve better.”

 

 

   “You don't know me,” she insists, still looking at him as though she understands nothing of what she's seen, and she must have seen because she looks shaken and unsettled, completely discomposed where he is used to her relentless calm, the silk glove over the iron hand of her will, and he can only really look at her because she's not wrong, but,

 

 

   “I know enough,” he tells her, and she shrinks back into herself, hides half behind her loosened hair and looks down at the empty space between them.

 

 

   “You don't, though,” she denies, shaking her head again, softly softly the swishing end of her hair's coil coming undone, falling in a sweep over her scars and making them look like a shadow under a shadow, and she is beautiful and he doesn't think she's really been told, or at least not enough to know it, or not by anyone she could trust, because she doesn't seem to realise that even her foreboding and uncertainty are arresting to him.

 

 

   “That woman killed my mother,” she says quietly, and a tear that was not there before falls on to the unclaimed seat and glistens there, and Rickon thinks, _that's too lovely to be left in a place like this_ , and, _I should have let her kill the bitch_ , and, _fuck that - I'll bloody help her._

 

 

   -


	11. You Have To Tell - You Have To Try

 

 

 

   “Shireen,” he says, quietly, carefully, because she may have said before that her mother and uncle were no great loss but she is crying and these are not the tears of earlier where she was hurt and shocked, these are grief and loss, and Rickon knows that you can grieve as deeply for the loss of an opportunity to heal a damaged relationship as you can for the loss of a person and he isn't going to take advantage of that, of a rare instance of vulnerability in her, he won't, but he has to mind how he lets her know it because he's sure that if he doesn't get it right, she'll never speak to him again,

 

 

   “If you'd rather not...”

 

 

   “Oh,” she expels, and it's like she's collecting herself again, she shakes her head like she's clearing it, and her frown is stubborn and irritated, and it's just what he was trying to avoid,

 

 

   “Oh, no, I didn't mean - she didn't kill my mother personally, you understand, I'm not - I'm not telling you anything that might land you in it - ”

 

 

   “I don't care about that,” he says immediately, it just falls out, pushed by the crushing mass of hot weight in his chest that's settled there because here she is in a bloody hospital, damaged and fragile and shocked and harried and sharing things with him because he's here, and yet she thinks he's worried about her telling him things he might end up better off not knowing, things that could implicate him or cause him problems - as if he'd ever believe she would be so careless or so inconsiderate - and she is looking at him as if this aggrieves her that she is having to inform him that she wouldn't do that when he knows she'd never, that she would never involve him like that in anything even remotely off-colour, like he doesn't already know that in his marrow,

 

 

   “I know you wouldn't, but it wouldn't matter, I don't care, I just - don't tell me anything if you think you'd rather I not know, later. Don't tell me anything you're not sure you'll be comfortable having told me when this is over.”

 

 

   _You don't have to think about convincing me that you aren't telling me things that'll land me in the shit,_ he thinks, watching her search his steadfastly sincere expression for doubts.

 

 

_You don't have to protect me, just protect yourself._

 

 

   “Everyone will know soon enough anyway,” she says heavily after a long moment's studying of his face, and she shakes her head again and then seems to realise that her hair's mostly loose on one side, and reaches up with an irritable gesture and removes a hair pin from part of the mass of it to sweep up that side and stab it more securely back into place, focusing on him again,

 

 

   “That bloody evil woman is called Melisandre Asshai, and when I say she killed my mother, I mean she may as well have done, because she's certainly responsible for driving her into an early grave.”

 

 

   The way she speaks is a sort of efficient hatred, almost businesslike in the delivery of facts as she sees them, but with a clear and undiluted loathing, and Rickon marvels at the way she does it, maintaining that gloss of composure when she's talking about something so intensely personal and raw.

 

 

   “So who is she then?” he asks, and Shireen's mouth thins in contempt.

 

 

   “She is the _priestess_ of a _cult_ , of all things, if you'll credit it, and my father's former personal assistant, and now that my mother is dead, she is also his former mistress and current partner,” she reveals, and the entire denunciation is layered with such utter disdain and disgust that Rickon can't quite discern whether there's a part of it that she loathes more than the others, but frankly to him it all sounds completely dreadful anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

 

 

   “I don't know your father and I don't want to offend you, but what the fuck was he thinking, getting involved with _that_?” Rickon asks bluntly, because he cannot imagine a parent of Shireen's being so easily led and taken in by someone like that red woman who was just so obviously a scheming bitch that Rickon can't see how she could ever manage to cloak that for long enough to snare someone with half a brain, and Shireen utters a little half-laugh and very dryly replies,

 

 

   “I can't presume to know what my father was thinking but I daresay at least _part_ of his thought process consisted of heartfelt relief at the erroneous idea that he could allow standards to grow lax on the back of my mother's ill-judged consent to him dipping his cock in another woman because said evil cunt was acting as my mother's spiritual advisor at the time, and thus in a unique position to convince her that it would be alright because her cult had conveniently decided that my father was some kind of messiah - probably _after_ she did some looking into his finances during her stint as his personal assistant.”

 

 

   “Your mother just... let that happen?” Rickon has to know, because that sounds insane to him, not just that Shireen's mother would allow such a thing on such a ridiculous and flimsy pretext but that Shireen's father could be the sort of person who would accept that just to have an affair. The idea that Shireen's parents could be both so weak and morally corrupt is mindboggling.

 

 

   “My mother was a troubled, unhappy woman,” Shireen tells him, a little wry but also tired, as if these are truths she has been reconciled to for too long,

 

 

   “She and my father married fairly young. I believe there was some family expectation that they would - I don't think they were ever truly in love or any such thing - but I know that my grandparents approved of the marriage and I think it was partly that pressure to be married and continue the Baratheon name that made my father do it. My family has always had some very strict, hideously old-fashioned ideas about heritage and lineage, and I think my mother allowed that to weigh on her. She was desperate to give my father a son to carry on the name, particularly because my uncle Robert never actually had any legitimate children, so none of them are Baratheons, but... She struggled with it. It almost killed her to have me, and that was after all manner of treatments and gods know what else...”

 

 

   Rickon wants to ask, wants to ask Shireen why she was not enough when she is the brightest star in all the heavens, when she is a stellar princess anyone with sense would be proud to call their child, but he doesn't because he can't do that to her when it is so clear in the way she's speaking of it that she was _not_ enough, that it has scarred her more deeply than whatever happened to her face and neck, so he keeps quiet.

 

 

   “She tried _everything_ ,” Shireen continues, with a deprecating flash of a smile that Rickon knows is more courage than mirth,

 

 

   “It was a struggle having me, and before then she'd practically exhausted the limits of medical science to have a child, she'd had several miscarriages before I was born, I think she was under observation for most of her pregnancy with me, and then after I was born and she almost died, I think my father sort of put his foot down when the doctors told her that trying to have another child would be madness, but she wouldn't listen.”

 

 

   “But she had you,” he murmurs, can't quite hold it back, because he just doesn't understand why Shireen's mother, having triumphed so gloriously at long last, would be dissatisfied still, would consider Shireen anything but the pinnacle of her achievement as a mother, would want anything other and more than so precious and hard-won a gift.

 

 

   “Yes,” Shireen replies softly, looking down into her lap,

 

 

   “She had me. But she wanted a son, she wanted an heir to the Baratheon name. Not an ugly, sickly daughter.”

 

 

   There is something in those words that is an echo, that is not Shireen herself, and it horrifies him to think that this must be a thing Shireen is repeating, that these must be her mother's words, spoken at some point in Shireen's presence or at least where they could be heard and not misunderstood, and he bites down on everything he'd like to say about that until he tastes blood, because her eyes are shining and solemn and there is a disappointment there that is directed inwards and Rickon doesn't know whether it's for Shireen's inability to forgive her mother for feeling such a thing or because Shireen herself believes it and can't let it go, but either option is abhorrent.

 

 

   “I was not a well child,” Shireen goes on by way of explanation,

 

 

   “I was premature, for one thing, and when I was still very young, I contracted a rare immunodeficiency illness and nearly died. I was ill for a long time. I think it pushed my mother past rationality, the fact that I came so close to dying. She became even more fixated on the idea of giving my father a son, and she started looking into alternative medicines and religions to try and find the answer to her problem, and then eventually, at long last, after countless more false alarms and miscarriages and ill health, she found the Lord of Light, Asshai's cult.”

 

 

   She sounds bitter now, and angry, and mocking of this cult business, and it appears entirely justified. Rickon can barely grasp how she is speaking of it without flying into a rage - he's not certain he could hold back if he were in her situation.

 

 

   “Suddenly, this woman had inveigled herself as my father's personal assistant and my mother's confidant and spiritual advisor,” Shireen spits, all vitriol, her face stiff with controlled anger,

 

 

   “After three months, Asshai had my mother convinced that if only she would give herself completely to this cult, she could find the peace she needed, that the mantle of responsibility to provide a Baratheon heir should be passed to another, and so my deluded, manipulated mother willed all her personal assets to the cult, convinced my father to will most of his personal assets to it as well, and to give them the estate that was my childhood home as a base for their bloody cult, since at that point my father and mother were living in the city and didn't really _need_ it.”

 

 

   Rickon thinks about someone infiltrating his family like that, driving a wedge between his parents, alienating them from their children, having them sign over Winterfell, the northern holdings, to them and their agenda whatever that might be.

 

 

   Rickon thinks about murder.

 

 

   “Then mother convinced my father to send me away to boarding for college, on the word of that red bitch, so I'd be well out of the way while she twisted my father and turned my mother's mind, and when I got back, I was told my mother had hung herself at the cult compound that used to be our house in the country, where I grew up, and that she had left me nothing, that everything she owned would go to those people,” Shireen grates, the bitterness giving way to a sort of partially breathless humourless laugh towards the end,

 

 

   “And no one saw it coming, apparently, or so they said, except me.”

 

 

   Her eyes shine with tears that don't fall as she smiles through them at him, and he wishes he could give her something but attentive, judgment free silence, wishes he could offer her something to go any way towards healing the wounds she's baring like they're just part of her armour now, things for her enemies to look at and despair that she still stands despite them.

 

 

   “So I was told that I was welcome to start work at my father's shipping company as I work on my degree, and since my father and this woman left on what was meant to be a business trip months ago, I felt I had to step in and keep the ship afloat, as best I could, until he came to his senses,” Shireen tells him, clearing her throat a little and banishing the sheen in her eyes, straightening her back, and Rickon can see the weight of that duty like a crown on her brow, and he can see how it pains her, to have been abandoned to it, that this was expected of her and so she lifted the burden, but she was never valued enough to be asked in the first place, and then she licks her lip briefly and looks down between them and says wearily,

 

 

   “I've heard nothing from him since. I have been running the company with my father's business partner, waiting for the situation to change. And now she is back, and she accosts me in a place she was not meant to know I attend, and all but threatens me.”

 

 

   “Can't you talk to your father at all? I mean, it sounds like he's completely blind to what this bitch is, but can't you show him?” Rickon asks, knowing as he does by the way her eyes cloud and become sad that it would be futile, and hating it.

 

 

   “Last time we spoke it was over the phone, and he informed me of my mother's passing, her cremation, since that cult of Asshai's believes in returning to the light after death - in fact they also preach the virtue of self-immolation when one is at the height of one's clarity, whatever the bloody hell that's meant to be about,” Shireen replies, thick with distaste for this nonsense,

 

 

   “And then he offered me the place at the company, asked me to stand in for him since he was going away to oversee aspects of the business abroad, and buggered off who knows where with that awful woman. I can't appeal to him. He's gone completely mad. He won't take my calls - I've had to resort to trying to change the structure of the business so I'll be able to block any decisions he tries to make for the company that look like she's had a hand in them, because I honestly believe she is trying to take everything we have for that cult of hers.”

 

 

   She takes a deep breath, sits up like she's on a throne and not in a hospital waiting room on an uncomfortable moulded plastic chair and the ice pack on her hand is an orb of her regalia, and looks him squarely in the eye, declaring,

 

 

   “She is trying to destroy my family, Rickon.”

 

 

   It is a statement of fact, and he hears that, but he also sees her determination and her pride, and her strength, and it puts iron in his spine and light in his heart.

 

 

   “She won't,” he knows, he's decided, and she frowns at him, mouth a wry pout of suspicion.

 

 

   “She already has,” Shireen points out harshly,

 

 

   “She's just scavenging the remnants, picking our bones clean.”

 

 

   “She isn't going to beat you, though,” Rickon insists with all the stubbornness in him and all the conviction she inspires,

 

 

   “I saw her. She's no match for you. Your father's a bloody fool to get involved with her, and I don't know what your mother was really like, but you're clearly the best of them, and you're stronger than this bitch too. She's hiding behind your father and using him to throw her weight about - without that, she'd be nothing. She is nothing in herself, so she'll never be able to beat you.”

 

 

   She tilts her head towards him and her frown grows curious, and behind the anger and the pain and the weariness there is a sort of faint reticence, like she isn't sure what to do with his faith in her, or being complimented for how she is clearly superior in every way to Miss Asshat and must therefore surely prevail.

 

 

   “Rickon,” she begins, and then the angry nurse from earlier interrupts by calling,

 

 

   “Miss Baratheon? Doctor Tarly can see you now,” and Shireen turns to look at the nurse, who gives her an encouraging smile and gestures to where a large young doctor with a round, kindly face is peeking out from the doorway of one of the examination rooms, and Shireen nods and gets up, but so does Rickon, which causes the nurse to frown at him, but he grins, because now he's sure Shireen is in safe hands.

 

 

   “Sam!” he calls, delighted with the way Sam screws up his face to peer at him and then goggles in recognition, and Rickon laughs and then says to a slightly puzzled-looking Shireen,

 

 

   “That's the doctor I mentioned - Samwell Tarly. He went to university with my brother Jon, he patched me up last I was here,” and Shireen nods thoughtfully and then murmurs,

 

 

   “Tarly... I know that name...”

 

 

   “Rickon Stark!” Sam cries with a grin to match Rickon's own, bustling over and reaching to clasp Rickon's arm in his usual hearty manner, and Rickon nods at him.

 

 

   “Sam, good to see you, it's been ages,” he acknowledges, because last he saw Sam was actually while Sam was sewing up his hands, and Sam is more Jon's friend than Rickon's anyway, so with Jon off climbing mountains with Ygritte, Sam hasn't been round since then, but Sam smiles at him and shrugs and just says,

 

 

   “Least you're not here telling me you've been rogering my handiwork - I was proud of how those stitches came out!”

 

 

   “You should be, you can barely tell it happened,” Rickon credits him, and then the angry nurse clears her throat loudly and Sam all but jumps into professional concern, addressing Shireen at once.

 

 

   “Miss Baratheon is it? If you'd just come through, I'll take a look at that hand of yours, Gilly will take you, I'll only be a minute,” he tells her respectfully, and Shireen regards him shrewdly for half a second and then replies politely,

 

 

   “Of course, Doctor Tarly. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but your mother's maiden name wouldn't happen to be Florent, would it?”

 

 

   “Yes, that's right,” Sam says with surprise, and Shireen nods and then smiles at him kindly, an expression meant to put him at ease, and Rickon is so glad to see it, how gentle she can be when it's deserved, how she has clearly seen that Sam is naturally shy, that her query has made him nervous.

 

 

   “Well then, I don't suppose you know me, but we are related,” Shireen tells him, no expectation in it, simply sharing something, making it obvious that Sam needn't be overjoyed but that she certainly doesn't mind the idea, and Sam looks vaguely confused for a second, and then his expression turns embarrassed and he blusters,

 

 

   “Oh, of course - Baratheon - I'm so sorry, I'm no good with that sort of thing - er - my grandfather, he's your uncle, isn't he? Is that right?”

 

 

   Sam bites his lip and watches her like he's afraid he's given her an incorrect answer, and Shireen just smiles and laughs pleasantly and tells him with grace,

 

 

   “Near enough, Doctor - my mother was Alester Florent's niece. I'm afraid we've never had much to do with your side of the family, but it is lovely to meet you!”

 

 

   “And you,” Sam tells her sincerely, smiling back at her, and then he reaches as if to shake her hand and realises, and his face falls again into somewhat embarrassed folds, and he cuts his gaze to the nurse and then back to Shireen, asking worriedly,

 

 

   “Er - right, of course, I'd shake your hand, but well - that's why you're here! Oh, you don't mind do you, me being your doctor? I can ask someone else - ”

 

 

   “Rickon tells me you're extremely competent, Doctor Tarly,” Shireen interrupts gently before Sam can work himself into a lather,

 

 

   “I would be delighted to benefit from your medical expertise, and then perhaps we can renew family connections at some later date when you are not treating me in your professional capacity.”

 

 

   “Oh,” Sam utters, glowing bright with the praise, and then he affects a professional demeanour just shy of joking and indicates the examination room, inviting Shireen,

 

 

   “Well in that case, Miss Baratheon, give me just a moment, and I'll be right with you.”

 

 

   “Certainly Doctor,” Shireen tells him with a playful smile but a serious and respectful tone, inclining her head, and then she glances at Rickon who is basking in the warmth of this interaction with something akin to pride and something else which is exactly what it is but she mustn't see, and she asks him,

 

 

   “If Brienne comes, will you leave?”

 

 

   “I won't leave until she gets here,” Rickon renews his promise, and Shireen nods to herself and turns to the nurse who takes her uninjured arm gently and leads her into the examination room without a word, and Rickon is left with Sam, staring after her although he can't even see her anymore, feeling saturated with her presence and yet starved of it now that he's had such an unexpected surfeit for so long and all to himself and has to do without again.

 

 

   “Rickon, mate,” Sam says, sounding concerned, snapping him out of it, and Rickon looks at him with mild surprise, both that he is there, although he hadn't really forgotten, was only mentally occupied elsewhere, and that Sam's expression is suddenly so grim.

 

 

   “Yeah, Sam?” he prompts, because he can tell by the way Sam is shuffling his feet that there's something he wants to say, and Sam groans and pulls a face and then blurts out,

 

 

   “I have to ask and don't hit me and don't hate me or think that I really think that you have, but I have to ask and Gilly won't let up until I do, so - ”

 

 

   “Gilly - that nurse?” Rickon asks, and Sam nods unhappily, and Rickon nods back, just the once, curtly, and states with absolute steady honesty, meeting Sam's worried gaze straight on,

 

 

   “I did not hurt Shireen. It was an accident. I feel responsible, but I did not hurt her, Sam.”

 

 

   “Oh, oh thank god,” Sam sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face, and then with painful earnestness implores,

 

 

   “You know I didn't think you had - after everything with Sansa, all that, I know you'd never do something like that, you're not like that at all - it's just that we have to be careful about this sort of thing, and Gilly's - ”

 

 

   “You're seeing her, aren't you?” Rickon realises, and Sam stops with his mouth open and then flushes and snaps his mouth shut, directing his full attention at the floor between his feet and fiddling his hands together, mumbling unintelligibly, and Rickon just grins and claps him on the shoulder and exclaims,

 

 

   “Good for you! Congrats, Sam!”

 

 

   Sam looks up at him with a sort of bashful pride and then casts a slight longing look towards the doorway Gilly and Shireen entered before, and Rickon has a moment of anxiety regarding whether he was quite so obvious himself just now, but then Sam is shrugging and admitting quietly,

 

 

   “We er - we're moving in together. It's um, it's brilliant, actually. I really love her.”

 

 

   “That's excellent, Sam, I'm happy for you,” Rickon tells him sincerely,

 

 

   “Does Jon know?”

 

 

   “Actually, Gilly and Ygritte know each other,” Sam informs him, a giddy sort of glow suffusing his face as he speaks of the woman he loves, and Rickon is delighted, truly, knows what Sam's been through, knows he deserves this happiness more than most people, so he nods at him and smiles encouragingly, and tells him,

 

 

   “That's really great, Sam. I'm glad you're happy.”

 

 

   “Are you..?” Sam asks hesitantly, eyes sliding to that doorway again, and Rickon blanches and shakes his head hard, denying,

 

 

   “No! No, I'm not - ”

 

 

   “I meant are _you_ happy,” Sam interrupts, voice slow and careful, and Rickon feels relieved at the same time he feels horribly exposed and in need of an escape route,

 

 

   “Are you doing alright after everything?”

 

 

   “I - ” Rickon begins, grasping for something to say to that, and he finds his own eyes wander inexorably back to where she disappeared so he closes them and takes a steadying breath, focusing in on Sam when he opens them again, and concentrating on sounding unaffected when he says,

 

 

   “I'm managing.”

 

 

   “Good...” Sam replies, easy honesty but watching Rickon closely, and then he tilts his head a bit and asks,

 

 

   “How do you know Miss Baratheon?”

 

 

   “She's in my therapy group,” Rickon confesses, but it sounds to his ears like, _don't tell a soul, please,_ and Sam nods very slowly indeed.

 

 

   “Right...” he says, and Rickon knows he's understood, that this won't go any further than the two of them, and he sighs with gratitude, and Sam claps him on the shoulder too and smiles encouragingly and then says,

 

 

   “I'd best see to her. You take care, alright? I'll probably see you when Jon gets back.”

 

 

   “Yeah, definitely,” Rickon replies with a slightly forced smile, feeling the narrowness of his escape,

 

 

   “I'll see you.”

 

 

   Sam grins at him briefly before following the path Shireen and Gilly took, and Rickon doesn't quite know what to do with himself for a moment, and then he just turns and wanders back to where he and Shireen were sitting.

 

 

   The tear that fell on the middle seat is gone, evaporated most likely, and suddenly Rickon feels wrung out and strangely restless, like he could lie down on the floor and sleep for a day but also like he needs to run until he can't feel his legs anymore, so he ends up meandering towards the doors and stepping outside for a moment, just to breathe, and while he's leaning against the brick wall just outside the entrance, he hears a sharp voice say,

 

 

   “Rickon Stark?” and he looks away from the soothing blue of the sky and towards the source, into the accusatory blue eyes of Brienne, her blonde head unmistakeable. He didn't recall her being quite so tall, but she is, both that and clearly formidable, and clearly displeased.

 

 

   “Where is Miss Shireen?” she demands, and Rickon stands up straight and tells her,

 

 

   “She's inside, having her hand looked at.”

 

 

   “So you just left her?” Brienne snaps, and Rickon would probably be defensive, angry even, if she were anyone else, if this were about anything but Shireen's wellbeing. Instead, Rickon understands perfectly.

 

 

   “She's only just gone in to be looked at - I promised I wouldn't leave until you got here. I was just getting some air,” he says as neutrally as he can, and Brienne squares up to him, glaring at him with a hard, righteous glint in her eye.

 

 

   “I don't think you quite understand what's going on here, Stark, but Miss Shireen has a lot on her plate right now. She doesn't need any extra distractions,” she states harshly, and Rickon takes care to meet her gaze.

 

 

   “She told me what's going on. Most of it, anyway. I know about Asshai. I know Shireen's going to win,” Rickon replies calmly,

 

 

   “She's everything that disgusting woman isn't.”

 

 

   Brienne's glare pierces, becomes suspicious, and although he doesn't back down, Rickon isn't sure he's well guarded enough to withstand it on all fronts.

 

 

   “What exactly is your game, Rickon Stark?” she asks, low and wary and warning, and Rickon has only one answer.

 

 

   “I don't have one,” he says simply, and Brienne's glare narrows.

 

 

   “What do you want with Miss Baratheon?” she demands angrily, like he's being obstreperous and obtuse on purpose and she has no time for it, like she'll shake sense out of him if she has to.

 

 

   “I don't want anything from her,” Rickon insists,

 

 

   “I'd like her to be happy, and safe. What I want doesn't matter.”

 

 

   The way she watches him as if what he has said is not the absolute truth unsettles the part of him that knows if he'd let it, it could want things, that it does want things, he just won't admit to it, or at least can't allow himself to right now, and suddenly he can't take it anymore.

 

 

   “I said I wouldn't leave until you got here - you're here,” he says shortly,

 

 

   “Take care of her. Tell her I hope she feels better soon,” he adds, striding past her towards Jon's bike, grateful beyond words that she doesn't try to stop him, that she doesn't call after him.

 

 

   He reaches Jon's bike and is pleased to see the helmet still there, jamming it on without a second thought, and getting on the bike.

 

 

   He makes it out of the car park before he realises it smells like her and that there's nothing to do but live with it until he gets home, but once he is home he doesn't take it off until he's parked and in the house halfway down the hall and almost at the bottom of the stairs and his mother shrieks at him about where he's been, and he has to take off the helmet and face her.

 

 

   Her expression is that strange combination of fear, concern, and anger that is all he ever really sees directed at himself these days from that particular corner, so he just shrugs and says,

 

 

   “I had to take a friend to the hospital.”

 

 

   “ ** _Hospital?_** What happened?” Catelyn shouts, instantly in front of him, plucking at his sleeves and touching his cheek even though he just told her he was taking a friend there, like he wouldn't have opened on it if he had been the one to be injured somehow, so he shrugs her off and steps back and glares and spits,

 

 

   “Nothing! Just an accident, that's all - it's fine, it's sorted, _leave me alone_ \- ”

 

 

   “I have been calling you _for twenty minutes_ , I had _no_ idea where you were, did you not think for a _moment_ to send me a text or _something_ , Rickon, I was so _worried_ \- ” his mother interrupts, loud and tearful now, and he realises.

 

 

   Shireen still has his phone.

 

 

   “ _Rickon!_ Are you listening to me? You could have been dead in a ditch somewhere, you could have - ”

 

 

   “I'm _fine_!” he snaps,

 

 

   “I'm fine - so is my friend, thanks for asking, everyone's fine, just leave it, leave me _alone_ , I'll call you next time - excuse me for not thinking of myself when someone else has an accident and needs to go to the hospital!”

 

 

   Catelyn blinks at him and presses her mouth tightly shut, and he takes the opportunity to bolt for his room, but he only reaches the landing before she recovers enough to shout after him,

 

 

   “Don't think your father won't hear about this when he gets home, young man!”

 

 

   He doesn't bother responding, just slams his door and locks it behind him and then he throws his helmet onto his bed, and after a minute of aimless angry pacing, throws himself onto his bed to join it and buries his face in it.

 

 

   _She smiled,_ he thinks, over and over until it doesn't hurt.

 

 

   -


End file.
